Saturday at KeyBank Center, Notre Dame will take the floor going up against a West Virginia team that wreaks havoc on the defensive end.
Brey said he doesn’t want to overdo his preparation for West Virginia’s pressure defense.
In the second round Notre Dame needed even more theatrics against #14 seed Stephen F. Austin. That shouldn’t happen. (It’s) the law of averages, but we’ve been in so many of them, we really believe … well, that’s what we did previous year.
“They don’t let us pick”, said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins.
On the other side, with 2,873 points, the Mountaineers are 12 from breaking the school’s single-season record set by the Jerry West-led team in 1958-59. Notre Dame did that on Thursday and they did so without playing their best game.
The victor advances to the Sweet 16 in San Jose, Calif.
Overlooked in the hubbub surrounding Malone was the fact that this was West Virginia’s first road win in the Big East.
The total has gone under in Notre Dame’s last seven games against the Big 12. Two games, two down to the wire wins over double digit seeded teams.
“I think our bench really needs to be ready to give us more, maybe play two big guys tomorrow, with the physicalness of their frontline”, Brey said. “We know what happens with the Irish on a day like today”. “My teammates found me and we got the win”. Princeton took the lead 17-15 and forced the Irish to call a timeout with 11:26 to go.
Fortunately for Princeton, Notre Dame didn’t shoot much better in the second half.
Xavier (+6) over Florida State: Cue the near-annual, “Xavier never gets any respect/Chris Mack really is a great coach”, discussions following another impressive NCAA performance by the Musketeers.
But when Florida State made the trip to South Bend the next month, the Irish turned it over just 13 times in an 84-72 victory.
A day ago, when Brey was asked about Farrell, he caused a bit of stir when he said he was better than Bobby Hurley had been.
Henderson said the improving quality of basketball in the Ivy League is in part a product of more aspiring hoopsters seeing the virtue of developing their off-court selves as seriously as the top-end NCAA talent – the kind destined for the NBA draft – hones its on-court acumen. We need guys to be great receivers. Princeton began playing sloppier than they had in the first 20 minutes, turning the ball over nine times.
WVU Holds On: The Mountaineers got a little scare from Bucknell in the first round, ultimately coming away with an 86-80 victory.
Princeton would build some momentum heading into the break based once again on their three point attack. The risk, however, is becoming too rushed and making bad decisions while trying to finish near the rim.
“I hope they can get out of jail by 8 a.m. because they’re rolling today”, Brey added.
“No matter how we looked, we got the win”, Colson said. “Are we looking to run offense?” Jerian Grant scored 20 points and Notre Dame made eight of its 11 3-point attempts, shooting 61 percent from the field. “If you look at our pace, we have been kind of a situational running team”.
“This is bringing back a lot of Big East memories all afternoon and last night,”Notre Dame head coach Mike Brey said”. “That’s how we were going to escape and we did escape”. They could have lost any of those games, and probably should have lost the last two, but they survived. The Tigers defense kept them in this game, but the impressive comeback fell just short.