Notre Dame guts out 58-49 win over Evansville in opener
By DOUG GRIFFITHS
ISL Correspondent
NOTRE DAME, Ind. ” Irish coach Mike Brey was pretty pleased with his team’s season-opening 58-49 win over visiting Evansville in the opening round of the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic this afternoon in Purcell Pavilion.
In fact, the Notre Dame coach called the victory a resume builder come March, saying his 22nd-ranked Irish beat a quality Purple Aces squad.
I think we beat a really good team that can be part of our resume, Brey said.
It was far from a thing of beauty, but that was OK with the Irish boss.
Notre Dame missed 27 of its 45 shots, 12 of its 30 free throws and didn’t take care of the basketball as well as Brey would’ve liked. The Irish had 13 turnovers.
What the Irish did do well was gut out a win against a team that wasn’t about to give up.
This was an Evansville team that never really went away despite the Irish building double-digit leads in both halves.
It was great to see that body language where, ˜We can’t get away from this team so we’ve got to keep guarding and keep figuring it out,’ Brey said. Every time they made it interesting I thought we executed, got a key stop or made a heck of a play. That will do us well over the next five months.
It will also do the Irish well to have one of the best post men in the Big East. Senior Jack Cooley got off to a good start. He poured in a game-high 19 points, pulled down 11 rebounds and blocked six shots.
He really got us jump-started, said Brey, referring to Cooley scoring Notre Dame’s first nine points of the game. He got us that early lead (9-4) and we were able to hold on.
The only way the Aces could stop the 6-foot-9 Cooley was to foul him, which they did a lot, too much for Coach Marty Simmons liking.
Cooley, who hit 5 of his 7 shots from the floor, went to the free throw line 14 times and knocked down eight.
He’s one heck of a player and he has got great hands, Simmons said. He is really smart and really knows how to play.
Cooley compared the contest to Big East play.
That was basically a Big East game, how physical it was in there, he said. It was a little unexpected because of their size, but they just game out and played hard.
Although Cooley was close to the top of his game, his teammates really weren’t.
Junior guard Jerian Grant was the only other Irish player to score in double figures. He finished with 11 points, hitting 5-of-10 shots and making 1-of-3 free throws.
As a team, Notre Dame shot just 40 percent from the floor (18-of-45), including a mere 23.5 percent from three-point range (4-of-17).
Just to be able to keep our composure when we’re not shooting that well was good, Cooley said. I mean, going 4-of-17 from three-point range and then still going back and playing defense, it’s good to see that people aren’t letting their offensive game affect their entire game.
The Irish were cold from the charity stripe, too, as they were 18-of-30 from the foul line.
Notre Dame might not of shot it well, but it got after it on the defensive end.
Brey liked what he saw defensively, so much so that he said, that’s the only way we won the game tonight.
The Aces managed to sink just 31.1 percent of their shots (19-of-61) and connected on 5-of-21 triples (23.8 percent).
Neither team could really make a shot, said guard Scott Martin, who pulled down a career-high 17 rebounds and scored six points. It’s a tribute to both teams’ defenses. It was a grind-out game.
Keying the defensive effort for the Irish was sophomore guard/forward Pat Connaughton. He drew the assignment of containing Colt Ryan, the Purple Aces’ leading scorer from a year ago, who averaged 20.5 points per game. Ryan scored 15 against the Irish, but was just 6-of-14 shooting, missing all three of his three-point attempts.
I knew it was going to be a challenge coming in, Connaughton said. But I was up for the challenge, and I’m looking forward to probably defending a lot of guys like that this season.
I thought Notre Dame really made it hard for us to score, Simmons said. They are long and very athletic, they close out and they communicate well. They are not easy to score against and I think we got frustrated at times.
Notre Dame, who led 28-21 at the break, built a 43-30 lead about halfway through the second half, but Evansville scored six straight to get within seven.
The Irish, however, responded with a 6-0 run to lead 48-36 with just over four minutes to play.
The Purple Aces never got closer than nine the rest of the way.
Notre Dame enjoyed its largest advantage of the game at 58-43 in the game’s final minute.
The Irish did hold a commanding 44-34 advantage in the rebounding department, which considering Evansville started just one player over 6-5 was to be expected.
Brey only played seven players as freshman forward Cameron Biedscheid came off the bench to score 7 points in 16 minutes. Senior center Garrick Sherman also played, getting 15 minutes.
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