Griffiths: Notre Dame’s win at Pitt much needed for NCAA hopes
By DOUG GRIFFITHS
ISL Assistant Editor
Notre Dame is having a good season, not great and not very good, but just good.
Thanks to the Fighting Irish’s upset over No. 20 Pitt, 51-42, last night in the Steel City, their record stands at 21-6 overall, 9-5 in the Big East with just four regular-season games remaining.
The win was a much-needed one for Notre Dame’s NCAA Tournament resume when you consider the Irish don’t have many quality victories this season.
They beat a top-10 Kentucky team in December, which is fighting for its NCAA Tournament life, and knocked off No. 11 Louisville in that classic five overtime game, but we all know the Cardinals haven’t lived up to all the preseason pub they received.
Both of those victories came at home, so beating Pitt away from Purcell Pavilion will bode well come Selection Sunday. The win over the Panthers is Notre Dame’s second quality true road victory, joining an early January triumph over nationally ranked Cincinnati.
Beating Pitt was somewhat unexpected. After all, this was an Irish team coming off a very forgettable performance Saturday at Providence where it was blown out by 17 points. In addition, earlier in the month Notre Dame needed overtimes twice to survive against DePaul, a team that has won just two Big East games this season.
Credit the Irish though because they showed as much fight against Pitt as they did in that classic contest against Rick Pitino’s Cardinals.
Against the Panthers, Notre Dame missed its first 12 shots and hit just one of its first 19. As a result, the Irish found themselves trailing 19-3.
That’s when Mike Brey had seen enough. Known for being anything but a hot head on the sidelines, Brey seemed to let his team’s struggles get to him as he vented to the officials and drew a technical as a result.
As it turned out, Brey’s ‘T’ was a brilliant move.
The Irish responded. They cut the deficit to 22-19 by halftime and dominated the second half, outscoring the hosts 32-20.
It’s hard to complain about a 21-win team, but it’s easy to believe Notre Dame has underachieved to a degree. Lets be honest, it hasn’t exactly faced the most daunting of schedules.
True, the Big East currently features six ranked teams, but it really doesn’t have a team capable of winning the national championship. A case could be made for Syracuse advancing to the Final Four, but like the Irish, Jim Boeheim’s Orange have also been the beneficiaries of a very friendly schedule.
Brey’s Irish now enjoy a few extra days off before hosting Cincinnati on Sunday. His team will eclipse last year’s win total of 22, but don’t expect it to go very deep in the Big East Tournament or the NCAA Tournament.
What this Irish team has going for it is the fact that it’s tournament savvy. This senior-laden team (it returned all five starters from a year ago) will make its fourth straight NCAA Tournament appearance next month.
That’s the good news. The bad news is it’s a thin team that got even thinner when sixth-year graduate student Scott Martin was sidelined indefinitely due to a knee that seems like it’s had enough basketball played on it.
When all is said and done, this team will go as far as guards Eric Atkins and Jerian Grant, the most athletically gifted veterans on the squad, and Jacky Cooley take it.
Cooley is a tenacious big man who can do a lot of damage on the blocks as his double-double (points and rebounds) would suggest.
Besides Atkins and Grant, this is a team that’s athletically challenged and thus must rely on dictating tempo to win games because its post players aren’t exactly too fleet of foot.
Right now Atkins, Grant and Cooley and Co. are eyeing a No. 5 seed come NCAA Tournament time and that means a dreaded matchup with a No. 12 seed. Uh oh.
Last year Notre Dame didn’t survive its first game in the Big Dance, losing to Xavier by four points. A similar fate could be awaiting the Irish this time around, too.
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