Notre Dame 56, Stanford 54: Burton carries the load, Certa shoots the dagger

A brutal slog in the opening 20 minutes gave way to one of the most exciting second halves of the year

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish were looking to rebound from a tough loss over the weekend to Wake Forest on Wednesday, as the Stanford Cardinal came to town for the penultimate regular season game. The shorthanded Irish have maintained competitiveness despite the loss of Braeden Shrewsberry, and the Cardinal are no juggernaut, so this game presented an excellent chance for the Irish to build momentum in advance of the ACC Tournament.

The Irish opened the game with Tae Davis and Kebba Njie netting just two makes (one each) in six tries at the free throw line, which enabled Ryan Agarwal to get Stanford an early lead by hitting a deep three. 7’1 Maxine Raynaud put in the next four points for the Cardinal on a Njie foul and a dunk off of shot-faking J.R. Konieczny at the three point line. No one helped between the arc and the rim, prompting a frustrated Micah Shrewsberry to immediately get his favorite defensive gadget, Julian Roper, off the bench.

Konieczny would get the lead down to two by making a kickout three, and after some cold shooting from both teams, Markus Burton would get on the board with a three of his own to give the Irish a one-point advantage. Meanwhile, the Cardinal were having a hard time getting shots to fall (particularly Raynaud, who was 1-for-6 at this early juncture with only the aforementioned dunk), and the Irish were doing their part by making things difficult. Stanford went almost six-and-a-half minutes without scoring, and the game hung at a disgusting 10-7 score when the clock ticked under 10 minutes.

Shrewsberry went to an odd Konstantynovskyi-Roper-Mohammed-Certa-Allocco lineup at this juncture and Stanford finally broke the drought with a game-tying three from Benny Gealer. Still, the offensive struggles continued for both teams. Sir Mohammed added to the free throw problems by missing two straight, and while he’d go 2-for-2 in his next trip, those were the first Irish points in nearly four minutes. Burton mercifully came back into the game and made a nice up-and-under move the next trip down to go up four.

Meanwhile, the Cardinal continued to play abysmally on the other end of the floor. What started as taking well-defended jumpers bled into unforced turnovers, missed open threes, and missing bunnies (Raynaud again!). At the six minute mark, the Cardinal were 3-for-23! The Irish (4-for-15) could have easily been up by double digits. Instead, after Raynaud and Davis traded difficult buckets on drives, Gealer connected on a three, and the Irish somehow found themselves down by a point when timeout was called with five minutes left in the half.

When play resumed, Gealer dropped another three in Koniezcny’s face. After a couple minutes of no scoring, Njie committed his third foul in about six total minutes of run, and Raynaud cashed in his foul shots to put Stanford up six. The Irish had no answers until Cole Certa attempted his first shot of the game — a deep semi-contested three pointer with his right foot on the midcourt ND logo. Nothing but net.

Still, against an opponent that just shot 7-for-30 in a half, the Irish went to the locker room down 24-21 after 20 aesthetically displeasing minutes of basketball.

The ugly offense continued when play resumed. Burton hit Njie on a nice bounce pass on a screen-and-roll, Njie caught it with space 10 feet from the hoop and…didn’t do anything. After passing up that shot, Davis had to take a bad end-of-shot-clock three. The next possession, Njie failed to corral a perfectly-fine bounce pass for a turnover. The Cardinal scored on both trips down to amass a seven point lead, which felt like 30 on a night like tonight. Shrewsberry had seen enough of his unwieldy center and brought in Allocco to play small ball.

Burton hit a stop-and-pop ten footer to ease the pain, but the lid was fully off the rim for the Cardinal at this point. Oziyah Sellers, practically salivating at the chance to go one-on-one at Allocco, torched him for an easy layup to get the lead back to seven. With urgency to score, Tae Davis got back to the line off of a nice feed from Burton, and the next trip down, Burton hit an insane at-the-horn three after Certa and Mohammed combined to light the shot clock on fire. Stupid as the play was, the Irish were back within two. Raynaud would finally find his touch for a baby-hook bucket, but Burton responded with a steal and transition three to get the lead down to one. Timeout, Cardinal.

A bit of bad luck befell the Irish when play resumed, as Cole Certa nicely deflected a Jaylen Blakes entry pass at the peak of his jump…right back to Blakes. With Certa out of position, Blakes got to the rim for an and-one. A couple possessions later, Blakes would cook Njie (seriously dude, just go home) off the dribble to extend the lead back to five.

Fortunately, the up-tempo nature of the second half allowed the pendulum to swing back the other way. Davis got fouled going up for a dunk, and Burton absolutely plowed through Gealer on a transition drive for a layup. The quick success was short-lived, however. Another post bucket for Raynaud was followed up by Njie passing up an open three, then throwing the ball backwards to…no one in particular. Gealer was happy to pick up the ball for him and take it for a transition layup. At the under-12 timeout, it isn’t clear what was said, but Shrewsberry walked straight through his other players and had some words for Njie.

The next stretch featured bad offense from Notre Dame that led to either difficult shots or turnovers, allowing Stanford to rack up a 6-0 run and bring the lead to nine, which forced Shrewsberry to call timeout. A better possession resulted, as Davis made a nice kickout to Allocco, who actually shot the ball (possibly in response to a very loud fan, who, speaking for all of us, yelled, “SHOOT IT!”). He missed, but collected the rebound and hit a 15-footer. Then, Davis absolutely suffocated Gealer on the perimeter to force a shot clock violation, giving the Irish some momentum trailing 46-39 at the under-8 timeout.

The Irish came up empty on their next offensive possession, but forced another shot clock violation the next trip down, so the Irish defensive intensity had picked up. Horrendous threes from Stanford guys who probably shouldn’t be taking them kept the window open while Davis and Burton wore the lead down to three at the free throw line. Then, Burton got trapped under the hoop but snuck a dish to Njie for an and-one dunk (and his first positive contribution of the game). Like so many other Irish tonight, Njie missed the free throw, but Davis snagged the rebound and kicked it out to Allocco for a three. Tie ballgame, 46-46.

Allocco followed that up with some good defense (!) on the other end. He found himself matched up on 7’1’’ Raynaud and drew a charge to get the ball back. Burton drove on Raynaud the next trip down and drew the big man’s fourth foul, and his third in three minutes, which gave Notre Dame its first lead of the half. The next trip down, Njie and Davis would combine to induce a terrible shot from Raynaud on the baseline. A stop-and-pop jumper from Burton would stretch it to a 13-0 run from Notre Dame, fueled by the defensive effort. The Irish led 50-46 at the under-4 timeout.

Out of the timeout, Gealer threw a horrible inbounds pass that resulted in a Cardinal turnover, and Burton calmly knocked down another 15-footer with Gealer on his back to push the lead to six. Raynaud would relatively easily get the first Cardinal bucket (a lay-in around Allocco, who was switched onto him for some reason) in five-and-a-half minutes the next trip down. Agarwal leaked open for a three the next trip down for Stanford to quickly shrink the Irish lead to one. The familiar nerves began to creep in yet again.

Notre Dame got away with a bad giveaway when Tae Davis picked up his dribble and under time pressure, threw the ball into the backcourt. Nice hustle from Markus Burton at least prevented the fast break, and Agarwal missed an open jumper to absolve Davis of his sin. Still, a disoriented Irish offense on the next possession resulted in a desperation Allocco heave that didn’t touch iron, leading to a bad shot clock violation with 1:30 to play. Blakes then put in a three over Njie’s semi-contesting arm to give Stanford a two-point lead with 1:09 remaining.

The Irish continued their skittish ways on offense as Davis lost the ball on a behind-the-back dribble, but got bailed out when Gealer fouled him as he attempted to track it down. He only made one foul shot, giving Stanford back the ball with a one-point lead and a minute to play. Late in the shot clock, Cole Certa contested a tough Sellers jumper that rimmed out, and Shrewsberry called timeout with 30 seconds left to set up the last play down by one.

What followed was a stroke of brilliance. Oddly, Shrewsberry had no intention of giving Burton the ball. Instead, Allocco caught the inbounds and passed it to Davis, and Burton cleared out the right side of the floor, bringing Gealer along with him. Cole Certa, who was being checked by the slower Raynaud, took his place and spotted up in the corner. Davis drove hard on Certa’s side of the floor, forcing Raynaud to commit to help, and Davis made the right play by kicking the ball out. Certa, once again, was nothing-but-net on the shot, and the three-pointer gave the Irish a two-point lead with 18 seconds to go.

On Stanford’s last chance, Allocco did a great job of preventing an Agarwal three-point attempt without fouling, and when Blakes drove baseline, Certa (who else?) deflected the kick-out pass. Allocco couldn’t get to the loose ball before it went out of bounds, giving Stanford 4 seconds to try one more time. Agarwal caught the inbounds pass in space near midcourt and ran past his man, Njie, on the dribble, but only had time to put up a running one-hander near the foul line extended, which bounced off the side of the rim. The Irish managed to close out a close one, and have clinched their spot in the ACC tournament.

Bullet Points

• There’s a good case to be made that this was Notre Dame’s best defensive effort of the season. Stanford’s shooting problems helped, but the Irish generally made things difficult on the Cardinal.
• Conversely, this was arguably the worst game of Kebba Njie’s career.
• Although Matt Allocco returned in this game, he did not start, and was the third sub in off the bench after Roper and Garrett Sundra (who relieved Njie after two quick fouls).
• Cole Certa started the second half, which was interesting, because the deep three pointer was his only contribution in the first. His defense has looked at minimum passable, and he seems like a more viable starter than Mohammed at this point.
• Micah Shrewsberry was pissed about his team’s effort when he called timeout with 8:50 to go. Make of this what you will, but the Cardinal only scored eight points the rest of the way. Shrewsberry also deserves a lot of credit for scheming Certa open on the last play and having the confidence to try something besides having Burton play hero ball.
• The Irish finished 15-for-25 at the free throw line, while Stanford shot 10-for-11.
• Davis was just 1-for-9 from the field and 7-for-12 from the free throw line. It wasn’t his best game, but the mere threat of him caused the double-team that got Certa open for his big shot.
• Allocco finished with seven points on 3-of-5 shooting and seven rebounds in his return.