Notre Dame 78, Boston College 60: Sweet, beautiful catharsis

A chippy game turned into a comfortable win after a stellar final ten minutes

The Boston College Eagles were in town Monday night to take on the Notre Dame Fighting Irish for a game that Notre Dame desperately needed to win. For the first 30 minutes, it was a sluggish effort that teased that the Irish might again lose a heartbreaker on their home court. However, Notre Dame was able to break away down the stretch behind great performances from every member of their closing lineup, Tae Davis, Markus Burton, Kebba Njie, Matt Allocco…and very notably, Julian Roper.

The Irish got free for a couple paint buckets early on nice shot-fakes by Davis and Burton. The Eagles seemed determined from the outset to run the Irish off the three point line, and Notre Dame didn’t attempt any early aside from a deep contested one from Burton. It was a sloppy, sleepy game from both teams until Davis, without regard for the fact that Eagles forward Chad Venning had a family, absolutely obliterated him with a one-handed poster dunk:

Sophomore guard Donald Hand Jr. would provide an answer from the Eagles in the form of a deep contested three and a nice post fadeaway over Matt Allocco, who has been struggling badly defensively of late. However, Allocco was the beneficiary of nice offensive glass work by Nikita Konstantynovskyi and Julian Roper and got his revenge with an open three to tie the score. A nifty behind-the-back pass from Allocco to Konstantynovskyi would lead to a layup, and Boston College quickly evened things up to bring the score to 13-13 at the under-12 timeout.

Sir Mohammed entered the game on the other side of the break and made a couple nice drives to the basket. He left the first floater short but made the second while getting fouled, as he looks to build some momentum coming off of by far his best effort thus far against Duke on Saturday. That basket and a three from Burton were the only points the Irish could score in the next stretch, as they struggled badly with ball security and offensive fouls. Given how few Irish possessions ended in a shot attempt, they were fortunate to be tied at 18-18 with eight to play in the half.

The offensive woes continued as the Irish shooting turned cold, compounding their turnover problems. Boston College was able to get a couple productive post touches to run their lead up to four, but otherwise wasn’t particularly effective during Notre Dame’s frigid spell. Kebba Njie went in untouched for a hard putback dunk off of a miss, and Davis plowed through the lane for an and-one to get the lead back.

The momentum was short-lived, as the strategy of doubling the post got burned when the Eagles were able kick the ball out and swing it to Hand for a three. Venning got his revenge on Davis when the latter went up for another hammer dunk and he swatted the crap out of it, letting out an audible expletive-laden battle cry. Venning would make a nice post move on Njie for a bucket a couple posessions later, but screamed “AND ONE!” at Njie. That was too much for the officials after Chaz Kelly’s outburst earlier (see bullet points), and Venning picked up a technical.

That technical foul proved to be a big mistake. Burton would hit both free throws and Allocco would get fouled going to the hoop. After making the first, Njie pulled down a tough offensive rebound and kicked it to Allocco for a floater on a drive, giving the Irish effectively five points on a single possession. Boston College would get stymied for a shot clock violation that led to a Davis layup, and Allocco would tie up Jayden Hastings to get the ball back once again. Davis got fouled going to the hoop and made both foul shots to complete the 9-0 run. After a rushed Donald Hand running three at the buzzer, the Irish went to the locker room up 36-33.

The scoring was quick for both teams at the outset of the second half, but unfortunately it came faster for Boston College. The Eagles put in 12 points in just about the first three minutes of the half, and Notre Dame didn’t have enough answers to match. Kebba Njie was huge on the offensive glass to prevent things from getting out of hand, netting a put-back and a couple free throws off of rebounds.

Boston College finally missed their first field goal of the half after five minutes had elapsed, and the Irish finally strung together a good run of defensive stops. However, shot-making was still a nightmare. Mohammed in particular missed a couple great looks in this stretch. The score hung at 45-44 Boston College for minutes until Burton made a bank shot off of about five foot pivots around his defender.

Donald Hand would answer an Allocco layup with a three to tie the score, but Tae Davis went hard to the hoop and Venning picked up his critical fourth foul with 10 minutes to go, sending him to the bench and giving the Irish the lead. The next trip down, Davis would miss his floater, but Julian Roper ripped the ball away from Hand on the rebound and saved it with a bounce pass to Davis for an and-one layup:

The critical hustle play gave the Irish a 5-point lead. Matt Allocco would send it to eight by making an extremely tough end-of-shot-clock fadeaway over Kelly while getting fouled. However, the run came to an end when BC’s Joshua Beadle got free for an inexplicable end-of-shot-clock layup and Kebba Njie hurt himself when he landed after the block. Given how well Njie had been playing, that was a bit of a gut-punch at a crucial juncture.

However, Julian Roper picked up the hustle-play slack by punching away a steal off of an Eagles rebound that led to an Allocco jumper in the lane to get the lead back up to eight. Minutes later, Roper would tip in a Burton missed lay-up and steal an errant pass on the next possession, which would lead to a Burton bucket on a drive. Though Roper had only scored two points himself, Notre Dame had scored seven points off of extra possessions he granted to the team over a five-minute stretch. Thanks in large part to his hustle, the Irish had a 12-point lead with under four minutes left, at 64-52.

With Boston College starved for any source of offense, particularly with Roper locking up Donald Hand in the second half, all Notre Dame had to do to seal the win from that point was make foul shots and avoid doing anything silly with the ball. Fortunately, they had been extremely successful at both of those during the entire second half. After turning the ball over nine times in the first 20 minutes, the Irish only logged one of them after halftime. A 23-for-27 performance at the line was more than sufficient to keep this from getting close down the stretch.

Bullet Points

• If you’re wondering why you haven’t read Braeden Shrewsberry’s name yet in this recap, it’s because he didn’t do anything. Boston College seemed determined to take him out of the game, and he finished with zero points. Roper finished the game in the closing lineup in his stead.
• Notre Dame finished with a whopping 13 steals. Somehow, Roper was only credited with one, but anyone watching knows that doesn’t do him justice.
• Speaking of Roper, he was a game-high +26 tonight. Between his defense, rebounding (second on the team after Njie, with 7), and steals (credited or not), he wrote a book on how to turn the tide of a game while scoring only two points.
• Chaz Kelly III made a basket in the first half by going right at Konstantynovskyi down the lane. He didn’t get a foul call, but he screamed “AND ONNNNNEE” right in Nikita’s face right after. Perhaps rattled, Konstantynovskyi committed an unnecessary offensive foul on the next possession and was pulled from the game.
• Njie’s injury didn’t wind up being serious, and would get back into the game after the under-4 timeout. Konstantynovski picked up a tough rebound and a block in his stead, but didn’t seem to have Njie’s understanding of Venning’s offensive game, allowing the latter to easily get to his right hand for a bucket in the post.
• The students began singing “The Wild Rover” in the closing minutes as the Irish ran out the clock. I’m not sure whether this is a new thing.
• Kebba Njie made a three pointer with 11 seconds left as the shot clock expired with the Irish already up 15. The crowd went nuts for it, and he deserved that feeling after how well he played.