Irish Sports Daily

Jack Cooley's Notre Dame basketball career ended a few games earlier than he would have liked, but the Irish big man has earned postseason national recognition for his play this season. Cooley was named an Honorable Mention All-American by the Associated Press on Monday.

Cooley was the only Big East Conference player to average a double-double during the 2012-2013 season. He scored 13.1 points and pulled-down 10.1 rebounds a game overall and 12.4 and 10.1, respectively, in 18 Big East games in his final season in an Irish uniform. Cooley also became the 53rd player in school history to score at least 1,000 points when he topped the mark this year to end with 1,017 points.

The 6'9 senior led the Fighting Irish by scoring in double figures 29 times this past season. He had 20 double figure rebounding games and 19 double-doubles. Cooley recorded a double-double in 10 of 18 Big East games this season. He finished his career with 32 double-double games.

This season marked the fifth time in the last six seasons that Notre Dame has had an AP All-American selection. The AP All-American First Team was comprised of Otto Porter of Georgetown, Indiana's Victor Oladipo, Trey Burke of Michigan, Doug McDermott of Creighton, and Gonzaga's Kelly Olynyk.

It didn't start badly, but it did not take long for it to get there. Notre Dame lost 76-58 to Iowa State Friday night in Dayton in the second round of the NCAA Basketball Tournament in a game that steadily snowballed out of control for the Fighting Irish.

The two teams felt each other out for the first several minutes. Korie Lucious hit Iowa State's first three-pointer to give the No. 10 seeded Cyclones an early 9-6 lead, but Jerian Grant answered to tie the game at 9-9 on No. 7 seed Notre Dame's first trey of the night. A 7-0 run made it 13-9 in Notre Dame's favor, but a second ISU trey ended the run and made it 13-12.

That was as close as the game would be the rest of the night on Mike Brey's 54th birthday.

Notre Dame (25-10), a team whose trademark is low turnover total, committed an unseemly 14 turnovers in the first half alone after entering the game with a tidy 11.1 turnovers per game. They turned it over on five consecutive first half possessions to help Iowa State (23-11) to an 11-1 run and a 26-19 lead. The Irish went a stretch of 7:10 without a field goal during the Cyclone run.

The 14 turnovers in the first half by the Irish ties the most in one half since Brey took over in the 2000-2001season. After going up by four points the Irish were outscored 26-10 to close the first half and trailed 35-23 after the first 20 minutes. Iowa State committed just three first half turnovers and had six by game's end, while scoring 16 points off Notre Dame's 17 total turnovers.

The Notre Dame men's basketball team knows its destination for the 2013 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. The Fighting Irish (25-9) will be the No. 7 seed in the West Region and is set to face No. 10 seed Iowa State (22-11) from the Big 12 in their first tournament game.

"This is a big day for our program," Irish head coach Mike Brey said shortly after learning of the selection. "Anytime you show up in that bracket on selection Sunday it means so much to this team. From my standpoint it means a lot to our basketball program."

Notre Dame's game will take place on Friday in Dayton, OH. Big Ten Tournament champ Ohio State is the West's No. 2 seed. The Buckeyes play No. 15 Iona. The winner of the Notre Dame - Iowa State game would face the Ohio State - Iona winner on Sunday. New Mexico is the No. 3 seed and plays No. 14 Harvard, while No. 6 seed Arizona faces No. 11 Belmont.

The Notre Dame-Iowa State/Ohio State-Iona winner would face the New Mexico-Harvard/Arizona Belmont winner in the Regional semifinals in the second weekend of the tournament.

Iowa State finished in fifth place in the Big 12 during the regular season. The Cyclones advanced to the Big 12 Tournament semifinals before falling 88-73 to eventual tournament champion Kansas. Notre Dame and Iowa State's only common opponents during the season were BYU and Cincinnati. The Irish beat the Bearcats twice, while the Cyclones lost their matchup 78-70 back on Nov. 23. Notre Dame and ISU both beat the Cougars.

"They've done a lot with transfers," Brey said of the job Fred Hoiberg has done as head coach at his alma mater. "They've integrated them even a little bit more than we have and it's been very, very good to them."

The Cyclones have four players who on the roster who have transferred from Division One programs. Chief among them is leading scorer Will Cyburn. The Utah transfer is averaging 15.0 points and 7.1 rebounds and has also hit 40-of-127 three-pointers (31%).

The fourth time was not the charm for the Notre Dame basketball team. In their fourth consecutive trip to the Big East Tournament semifinals, the Fighting Irish fell 69-57 to Louisville Friday night at Madison Square Garden in New York City. It marks the second straight year the Irish (25-9) have lost in the Big East semifinals to Louisville (28-5).

Louisville got out to an early seven-point lead, but Notre Dame settled down and tied the game 22-22 on a spinning layup by Garrick Sherman with 6:03 to play in the first half. The bucket gave Sherman a string of six consecutive points for the Irish. He started the game by hitting his first four attempts from the floor, but was 0-for-4 from the field in the second half.

The Cardinals closed the first 20 minutes on a 10-3 spurt to lead 32-25 at halftime. Both teams shot well over the first 20 minutes. The Irish were 9-for-20 (45%), while Louisville was right behind at 13-for-29 (44%). ND hit just 10-of-30 second half shots to finish the night at 38 percent. Louisville hit 47% (25-for-53) overall.

Pat Connaughton continued his hot three-point shooting in the first half by hitting 2-of-3 from behind the arc. Connaughton came into the semifinal matchup with a total of 12 three-pointers in his first two Big East Tournament games.

The Cardinals put the clamps on Connaughton in the second half though. He finished 3-of-6 with nine points. Of the 26 shots he attempted in three games, 24 were three-pointers. His 15 treys in three games is one shy of the Big East record is 16 in one tournament.

Pat Connaughton is on fire. A night after hitting 6-of-8 three-pointers en-route to a season-high 21 points in Wednesday's win over Rutgers, Connaughton canned 6-of-10 treys to score a game-high 21 points in Thursday's Big East Tournament quarterfinal 73-65 win over Marquette. Connaughton missed his first two long range shots and then made 6-of-8 the rest of the way.

Marquette made three of its first four shots to jump out to a 7-0 lead two minutes into the game. Jerian Grant hit a layup coming out of an Irish timeout to get his team on the scoreboard.

The Irish continued to struggle to find their shots in the early going, shooting just 2-of-16 (12%) from the field overall and 0-for-6 from three-point range to fall behind 17-4. They missed 11 consecutive shots after Tom Knight's layup at the 16:25 mark.

Grant finally ended a six-minute drought with a layup after the second media timeout. Pat Connaughton, who was coming off a season-high 21 points in Wednesday's win over Rutgers, then connected on a three-pointer to make it an eight-point game.

For a second straight night Grant did not shoot well, but still managed to finish in double figures. Grant was 3-for-10 for 11 points Wednesday against the Scarlet Knights. He was 4-for-15 with 17 points against the Golden Eagles.

Pat Connaughton and Tom Knight were hot and Jack Cooley and Jerian Grant were not as the Notre Dame basketball team held off a scrappy Rutgers team Wednesday night in second round play of the Big East Tournament.

Connaughton scored a game-high 21 points and Knight added 18 more to help the Irish (24-8) advance to a Thursday night quarterfinal matchup against Marquette. Connaughton was nearly lights-out from three-point range. The sophomore connected on 6-of-8 long range shots to help the Irish go 10-for-17 (58%) on threes in the victory over Rutgers (15-16) at Madison Square Garden.

Knight had a big game himself. The 6'10 forward had career-highs in both points and rebounds with 18 and nine, respectively. He was 6-for-14 from the field. Knight led all scorers with 10 points at halftime.

Notre Dame needed the efforts of the duo. Cooley and Grant combined to score 27 points a game entering the night, but they combined for just 13 in the eight point win. Cooley finished with just two points on 1-for-6 shooting. All six of his shots were in the first half.

The Irish got off to a 7-1 lead. Rutgers made it 9-7, but the Irish rattled-off nine straight points to take an 11-point advantage. Notre Dame started out 7-for-19 (41%) from the field while holding Rutgers to 4-for-17 (23%) shooting over the game's first 13 minutes.

A year from now Notre Dame will be preparing to play in its first ACC Basketball Tournament. After multiple outlets reported late Monday and early Tuesday that the Irish will move to the Atlantic Coast Conference as of July 1 this year, the university issued a release on Tuesday to make it official.

"From the time of our decision to join the ACC we have stressed our commitment to ensuring that our departure was achieved in a collegial manner," Notre Dame vice president and director of athletics Jack Swarbrick said in the release.

"This agreement realizes that intention and we are very grateful to the members of the Big East and Commissioner Mike Aresco for helping to facilitate this orderly and timely transition."

The original plan was for Notre Dame to leave the Big East by 2015, but the jump to the ACC will begin with the 2013-2014 academic year. The transition was accelerated by last week's announcement of the current Big East's Catholic 7 schools that they will be leaving to form their own league after the current academic year.

All Notre Dame sports, with the exception of football and hockey, will play in the ACC next season. Football will remain an independent. Hockey, which currently plays in the CCHA, is set to join the Hockey East Conference next season. Notre Dame's release says the Irish will play five ACC football opponents per season beginning in 2014.

Syracuse and Pittsburgh will join the ACC at the same time as Notre Dame to give the ACC 15 members in 2013-2014. Louisville is scheduled to join the ACC in 2014-2015. Maryland will leave the ACC for the Big Ten at the same time.

Jack Cooley has played like one of the top players in the Big East Conference all season long, and the league's coaches have honored him like one. Cooley is among six players who have been named first team All-Big East for the 2012-2013 men's basketball season.

The 6'9 senior averaged a double-double for the season with 13.6 points and a conference-leading 10.6 rebounds a game for the Fighting Irish, which tied Syracuse for fifth place in the Big East during the regular season. Cooley registered double-doubles in 19 of 31 games this season. Nobody in the Big East Conference had more.

Joining Cooley on the first team are Georgetown forward Otto Porter (the only unanimous selection), UConn's Shabazz Napier, Louisville's Gorgui Dieng and Russ Smith, and Bryce Cotton of Providence.

The Big East will name its Player of the Year, Coach of the Year and Rookie of the Year awards at its banquet on Monday in New York.

Jerian Grant is the only other Irish player to receive All-Big East accolades for the season. Grant received second team honors after averaging 13.4 points and 5.7 assists during the season. His 45 three-pointers made are second to backcourt mate Eric Atkins' 46.