Tag: T.J. Gibbs

Notre Dame wins over teams at least eight games above .500 since 2018

The Irish haven’t had many recent wins like the one against Virginia.

In a season that figures to have few true highlights, Notre Dame had one Saturday. Virginia entered Purcell Pavilion with a 10-2 record and having received votes in the most recent Top 25 poll. That didn’t matter to the young Irish because they crushed the Cavaliers, 76-54. If anyone tells you they saw that coming, they’re lying.

This wasn’t only an upset against a quality program and Micah Shrewsberry’s first ACC win. It represented a rarity for Notre Dame in recent years. The Cavaliers’ record coming into this game meant they were eight games above .500. Since the Irish last made consecutive NCAA Tournaments from 2015 to 2017, they have beaten opponents who were at least eight games above .500 coming in only seven times.

So forgive the Irish if they go a little over the top in celebrating this latest such instance. This doesn’t happen to them very much these days, so they definitely are cause for celebration every time. Here are the most recent of these occurrences:

2020 ACC Tournament Completion: Notre Dame barely falls to Duke in title game

The Irish lose a heartbreaker with the ACC’s automatic bid on the line.

This is the conclusion of a series in which we are simulating the remainder of the canceled 2020 ACC Tournament using the sports simulation tool WhatIfSports.com. For more information about the simulation, check out the introduction here. For the complete tournament results, refer to the bracket at the bottom of the post.

Notre Dame refused to back down to Duke in the 2020 ACC Tournament championship game, even when things looked bleak. In fact, it looked like the Irish might pull off an epic comeback and earn the ACC’s automatic bid to March Madness. Alas, it wasn’t to be, and the Blue Devils won their third ACC Tournament title in four years with an 83-81 victory.

The Irish initially staged a competitive first half before tailing off and falling behind by 16 at halftime. They trailed by 13 with seven minutes to go but went on a 14-2 run to cut the deficit to one after Cassius Stanley fouled out for Duke. Soon after, Rex Pflueger, no stranger to Notre Dame heroics, hit a jump shot to tie the game at 81 with 1:26 left. It appeared the Irish were poised to knock off their third straight higher seed.

Unfortunately for Notre Dame, it was at that moment when the offense ran out of gas. After Vernon Carey hit two free throws to give Duke a two-point lead, T.J. Gibbs missed a go-ahead 3, and Juwan Durham was way off-target on a shot that would have tied the game. John Mooney came up with a key block on Carey, giving the Irish one last chance with 14 seconds remaining. Dane Goodwin found an open shot on the right wing, but he missed as the buzzer sounded, breaking the Irish’s hearts and leaving them to hope the selection committee would be impressed enough by their resume and 21-13 record to grant them an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.

All five Blue Devils starters reached double figures. Carey achieved a double-double of 17 points and 10 rebounds, but Tre Jones’ 16 points and third straight nine-assist showing gave him Tournament MVP honors as those numbers aligned perfectly with his tournament averages over the three games he played. Stanley recorded 14 points and seven boards before his disqualification. Matthew Hurt scored 13, and Jordan Goldwire had 11.

Gibbs was the game’s top scorer with 22 points, including four 3-pointers. Pflueger scored 17 and led the Irish with five assists. Mooney had a trademark game of 12 points and a game-high 14 rebounds. Goodwin scored 12 off the bench but undoubtedly cared more about his failure to send the game to overtime at the horn.

2020 ACC Tournament Completion: Notre Dame barely falls to Duke in title game

The Irish lose a heartbreaker with the ACC’s automatic bid on the line.

This is the conclusion of a series in which we are simulating the remainder of the canceled 2020 ACC Tournament using the sports simulation tool WhatIfSports.com. For more information about the simulation, check out the introduction here. For the complete tournament results, refer to the bracket at the bottom of the post.

Notre Dame refused to back down to Duke in the 2020 ACC Tournament championship game, even when things looked bleak. In fact, it looked like the Irish might pull off an epic comeback and earn the ACC’s automatic bid to March Madness. Alas, it wasn’t to be, and the Blue Devils won their third ACC Tournament title in four years with an 83-81 victory.

The Irish initially staged a competitive first half before tailing off and falling behind by 16 at halftime. They trailed by 13 with seven minutes to go but went on a 14-2 run to cut the deficit to one after Cassius Stanley fouled out for Duke. Soon after, Rex Pflueger, no stranger to Notre Dame heroics, hit a jump shot to tie the game at 81 with 1:26 left. It appeared the Irish were poised to knock off their third straight higher seed.

Unfortunately for Notre Dame, it was at that moment when the offense ran out of gas. After Vernon Carey hit two free throws to give Duke a two-point lead, T.J. Gibbs missed a go-ahead 3, and Juwan Durham was way off-target on a shot that would have tied the game. John Mooney came up with a key block on Carey, giving the Irish one last chance with 14 seconds remaining. Dane Goodwin found an open shot on the right wing, but he missed as the buzzer sounded, breaking the Irish’s hearts and leaving them to hope the selection committee would be impressed enough by their resume and 21-13 record to grant them an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.

All five Blue Devils starters reached double figures. Carey achieved a double-double of 17 points and 10 rebounds, but Tre Jones’ 16 points and third straight nine-assist showing gave him Tournament MVP honors as those numbers aligned perfectly with his tournament averages over the three games he played. Stanley recorded 14 points and seven boards before his disqualification. Matthew Hurt scored 13, and Jordan Goldwire had 11.

Gibbs was the game’s top scorer with 22 points, including four 3-pointers. Pflueger scored 17 and led the Irish with five assists. Mooney had a trademark game of 12 points and a game-high 14 rebounds. Goodwin scored 12 off the bench but undoubtedly cared more about his failure to send the game to overtime at the horn.

2020 ACC Tournament Completion: Notre Dame knocks off Louisville

The Irish are going to the championship game!

Well. Notre Dame has put itself on the cusp of an unlikely ACC Tournament championship. It wasn’t all easy as the seventh-seeded Irish had to survive a scare from third-seeded Louisville in an 81-78 semifinal victory. Still, they will have a chance to avenge their 2017 title game loss to Duke when they face the Blue Devils for the 2020 title.

Notre Dame went on a 9-0 run beginning around the midway point of the first half and rode the momentum to a 17-point halftime lead. It held a double-digit lead as late as the 14:37 mark of the second half and an eight-point lead with 44 seconds left. Louisville then made 3-pointers on four consecutive possessions, but the Irish made enough free throws to stay in front as the time ticked away. The Cardinals had a chance to send the game to overtime in the final seconds, only for David Johnson to clank a 3 from straight away and give the Irish their second straight upset of the tournament.

T.J. Gibbs shot 6 of 15 from the field to lead Notre Dame with 17 points. John Mooney had 13 points, eight rebounds and five assists. Dane Goodwin came just short of a double-double with 12 points and nine boards, and Prentiss Hubb scored 12 to go with a game-high six assists. The Irish shot 90.9 percent from the free-throw line, which it needed to counter an abysmal 7-of-25 showing from beyond the arc.

For the Cardinals, Jordan Nwora missed a double-double by one rebound while leading all scorers with 22 points. Johnson had 13 points on 6-of-8 shooting and five assists off the bench. Malik Williams also shined for Louisville’s second unit with a double-double of 12 points and 10 boards. Steven Enoch fouled out with eight points in the final seconds, giving Rex Pflueger the opportunity to go up four, but Pflueger split his free throws, giving the Cardinals the aforementioned opportunity to tie.

Notre Dame Basketball Won’t Be Able to Gather This Summer

When Notre Dame’s president, the Rev. John I. Jenkins, announced that the university would open for the fall, moods everywhere brightened

When Notre Dame’s president, the Rev. John I. Jenkins, announced Monday that the university would open for the fall semester, albeit two weeks early and with no fall break, moods everywhere brightened. The announcement meant a possible light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel. Maybe football would go on as scheduled. Just about anything was possible now.

However, what won’t be possible is the Notre Dame basketball team’s annual summertime spent together. Though the university will open Aug. 10, the second summer school session was canceled. That means the Irish basketball players won’t be on campus over the summer for the first time since 1998, the last year of the John MacLeod era.

Though Mike Brey’s staff hopes the team can gather at some point in July, it would be nothing compared to the six weeks the Irish usually spend working and bonding together. While some teams might embrace having to go right at it when they’re finally able to gather again, this is an especially challenging time for Notre Dame. With John Mooney, Rex Pflueger and T.J. Gibbs all having graduated, the 2020-21 season represents a changing of the guard by way of the junior class leading the way. Now comes a challenge Prentiss Hubb, Nate Laszewski and Dane Goodwin couldn’t possibly have prepared for.

True college basketball fans love seeing videos of their team working out together and maybe even taking trips together over the summer. They serve as hype for the coming season at a time when college basketball is out of the spotlight. This year, the world has changed, and no one knows what will happen when the games return. Summer school or no summer school, it will be time to play before the Irish know it, and with everyone is eager to get back on that court and win, no opponent’s going to feel sorry for them if they’re ill-prepared this fall.

Notre Dame 15 Years Tournament: ’15-16 Irish Hold Off ’18-19 Irish

Was it possible for the lowest seed in the Notre Dame 15 Years Tournament to work its magic again in the second round?

Was it possible for the lowest seed in the Notre Dame 15 Years Tournament to work its magic again in the second round? It nearly happened, but the fates said enough was enough. The 2015-16 Irish held on for just long enough to defeat the 2018-19 Irish, 85-78.

John Mooney closed a back-and-forth first half with a buzzer beater to give the ’18-19 Irish a two-point halftime lead. In the second half, they held a five-point lead and briefly turned a four-point deficit into a one-point lead with five minutes to go. But the ’15-16 Irish followed that with a 9-0 run to go up by eight. Over the final minute-and-a-half, unlikely hero Austin Burgett hit a dagger 3-pointer, then made all eight of his free throws to seal the win, scoring 11 of his 14 points during that stretch.

Steve Vasturia led all scorers with 18 points on 7-of-10 shooting from the field. Zach Auguste scored 16 points, and V.J. Beachem had a double-double of 14 points and 10 rebounds. Demetrius Jackson coupled 10 points with six assists, and Bonzie Colson grabbed a game-high 14 boards.

Despite shooting 5 of 18 from the field, T.J. Gibbs led the ’18-19 Irish with 16 points. D.J. Harvey scored 15, and Mooney added another double-double to his resume with 12 points and rebounds apiece. Prentiss Hubb scored 11, and Nate Laszewski came off the bench with 10.

Notre Dame 15 Years Tournament: ’13-14 Irish Blow it Open vs. ’17-18 Irish

The 2013-14 Irish made it a clean sweep for lower seeds in the first round, beating the 2017-18 Irish, 78-66.

In the first game of our Notre Dame 15 Years Tournament in which no player was on both teams, the 2013-14 Irish made it a clean sweep for lower seeds in the first round, beating the 2017-18 Irish, 78-66. This was the first game in the tournament that was void of any drama. As a result, we’ll get our second game in this tournament featuring teams from back-to-back years when the victors in this game play the 2012-13 Irish in the second round.

The only lead for the ’17-18 Irish came when the score was 4-2. After it was tied at 6, the ’13-14 Irish scored 12 unanswered points and never relinquished the lead. The ’17-18 Irish never got closer than six the rest of the first half, and the deficit was double digits for most of the second.

Garrick Sherman dominated this game with 17 points and 16 rebounds, adding to the six double-doubles he achieved during the ’13-14 season. Pat Connaughton came within a couple of boards of joining him with 13 and eight. Zach Auguste scored 10 points, and Eric Atkins was balanced across the stats sheet with seven points, seven rebounds and a game-high eight assists.

Bonzie Colson was similarly dominant for the ’17-18 Irish as he achieved a double-double of 17 points and 13 rebounds. T.J. Gibbs scored 13 points to go with six assists, and Rex Pflueger scored 12. However, the bench let the team down as it was outscored, 26-9.

Notre Dame 15 Years Tournament: ’18-19 Irish Better Than ’19-20 Irish

Only two games into the Notre Dame 15 Years Tournament, and the lower seeds already are 2-0.

Only two games into the Notre Dame 15 Years Tournament, and the lower seeds already are 2-0. In this case, the 2018-19 Irish, the lowest seed in the field showed that perhaps, they could have had a better season than the most recent iteration of the Irish. They won the first-round matchup in which players basically played against each other, 80-71.

Despite the closeness of this game, the ’18-19 Irish never trailed in the first half and had a four-point lead at the break. Early in the second half, the ’19-20 John Mooney hit a shot to give his team a one-point lead, but the younger Mooney answered back with his own bucket 12 seconds later, and the ’18-19 Irish led the rest of the way. They went on a 13-4 run to break it open and ultimately grew their lead to 13. Though the ’19-20 Irish cut the deficit to five with just over a minute left, they made too many mistakes to give themselves a shot at late heroics.

Five players scored in double figures for the ’18-19 Irish, led by Mooney’s 20 points and 13 rebounds. Dane Goodwin paced the second unit with 13 points. D.J. Harvey and T.J. Gibbs put up 12 points apiece, and Prentiss Hubb had 10 while shooting all but one of his field-goal attempts from 3-point range.

The ’19-20 Irish were paced by Mooney, who had 22 points and 16 rebounds. Hubb wasn’t far behind with 17 points. This Irish team had fewer free-throw attempts (11) than free throws made by its opponent (16), and the number of free throws this Irish team made (seven) was the difference in the game.

Notre Dame Basketball Ends Season With Virtual Evening

We weren’t officially supposed to tie a bow on the 2019-20 Notre Dame basketball season with everyone separated from each other.

We weren’t officially supposed to tie a bow on the 2019-20 Notre Dame basketball season with everyone separated from each other, but that’s the reality of the world we’re living in. Typically, the year officially concludes when An Evening With Notre Dame Basketball is held on campus with every type of supporter imaginable in attendance. The latest edition would have happened Thursday in Rolfs Athletic Hall. Instead, Twitter was the forum for this year’s festivities.

The virtual fun began with some opening words from Mike Brey:

From there, we got to the awards. We’ll let the tweets speak for themselves:

During the night, we also got some parting words from Rex Pflueger and T.J. Gibbs.

Oh yeah. We heard from John Mooney, too. He also got the biggest award of the night:

Brey gave some parting words of his own, but we all know he’s not going anywhere (thankfully):

Yeah, it would have been to see something more glamorous to send off this year’s Irish, but pomp and circumstance as we’ve come to know it must be on hold right now. Hopefully, by the time comes for the 2020-21 season to start, we’ll be back to normal to at least some degree. For now, stay safe so we can take a step back in the right direction.

 

Notre Dame 15 Years Tournament: No. 11 Seed – 2017-18 Irish

Notre Dame had reason to believe the 2017-18 season would build on the success of the recent past.

Notre Dame had reason to believe the 2017-18 season would build on the success of the recent past, which included six NCAA tournaments in the previous seven years. It was ranked 14th in the preseason poll, and in the early part of the schedule, it upset No. 6 Wichita State to win the Maui Invitational. Ultimately, the Irish went 10-3 in nonconference play, ascending their ranking to as high as fifth.

The Irish won their first three ACC games, but by the time conference play had begun, they were out of the rankings, perhaps as an omen of things to come. After that 3-0 start to ACC play, they lost seven straight, and the wins that followed ultimately were too little, too late. In spite of this, they remained a bubble team for the NCAA tournament until the end, and it earned them a top seed in the NIT. After defeating Hampton in the first round, they lost to Penn State in the second to finish 21-15.

Bonzie Colson and Matt Farrell were the senior leaders for this group. Colson averaged a double-double of 19.7 points and 10.1 rebounds a game, while Farrell ended up with 16.3 points and a team-high 5.5 assists a game. T.J. Gibbs and Martinas Geben rounded out the top scorers with respective scoring averages of 15.3 and 11.1.