Notre Dame assured itself a double by in next week’s Big East Tournament with a season ending 75-69 victory over Providence on Friday. Jack Cooley, doing his best Adrian Dantley impression, led the Irish with 27 points and 17 rebounds. 21 of those points and 10 of the rebounds came in the first half while the Irish offense sputtered; but the offense came alive to turn a 3 point halftime lead into a 25 point margin a little after the second half’s midpoint.
Providence narrowed the margin against the Irish reserves, but the outcome was not in doubt over the last 10 minutes.
The victory clinched a third place finish for the Big East’s surprise team.
Eric Atkins played a stellar floor game - 9 assists and 10 points. Scott Martin chipped in with 11 points on his senior day. Jerian Grant and Alex Dragicevich also scored in double digits.
Gerard Coleman and Vincent Council tied for Providence scoring honors with 17 points apiece. LeDontae Henton added 16 points.
The Irish opened the game determined to get Cooley involved in the offense early, and they were successful. Cooley scored on a put-back of a Scott Martin miss, a jump hook, and a pair of free throws in the first three minutes; and he was on his way to the free throw line again when the whistle blew for the first media timeout.
“It was a main focal point at the start of the game, getting me off on a good footing,” said Cooley. “I needed to get my confidence back after last game, and it really helped to play well tonight.”
Notre Dame continued to feed Cooley until it was time for him to take a break. After splitting a pair of free throws, he added a pair of layups, the second after a nice feed from Eric Atkins, to run his point total to 11 and give the Irish a 13-8 lead with 14:30 left in the half. He also had five rebounds before his well-earned rest.
The rest of ND offense stalled because the Irish weren’t moving after dumping the ball to the post. Atkins, Martin, and Dragicevich missed shots, and PC inched into a brief 16-15 lead. A Jerian Grant drive for a basket broke the run, and the lead toggled for the rest of the half. Cooley and Providence’s leading scorer Vincent Council carried their teams’ scoring load. Council finished the first half with 10 points and 4 assists. Cooley had 21 points and 10 rebounds.
The Irish made 38% of their shots in the half, 7 of 10 by Cooley and 4 of 19 by everyone else. The Friars made 38% of their shots in the ragged first half. Notre Dame had a 21-19 rebounding edge.
The Irish brought their defense and passing game out of the locker room to start the second half. PC’s Bilal Dixon opened the second half scoring with a short jumper; but Pat Connaughton scored cutting down the lane for a layup after a nice feed from Cooley, Cooley made a short hook from the post on a nice feed from Alex Dragicevich, Eric Atkins made a layup off of a pretty feed from Martin at the foul line, and Grant trailed the break for a three point basket from an Atkins assist. When the whistle blew for a media timeout with 15:25 left in the game, Notre Dame held a 42-31 lead.
“We talked about holding them to one and done and then getting out and running on the break,” Atkins said when asked about halftime discussions. “They take a lot of quick shots, so we knew we were going to get a lot of opportunities to get out on the open floor and get easy baskets.
“We talked about getting the ball to Jack at the beginning of the game,” Martin said. “As a result of that, we were stagnant. When he wasn’t open or he wasn’t scoring, we were just standing there and we weren’t getting anything good. We talked at halftime about moving, cutting, and back-dooring. Pat (Connaughton) got a cut right away and a layup and that got us moving. We made some threes, and they had to respect the three so we got some stuff going to the basket.”
The Irish onslaught continued after the break. Atkins drove for a basket and a foul on Kadeem Batts, his fifth. Atkins completed the three point play to give the Irish a 45-33 lead. A three point basket by Dragicevich, a Martin layup on a nice feed from Grant, and an Atkins drive for reverse layup keyed a run to a 52-33 lead at the under 12:00 timeout; and the game was all but over.
“We did a good job jumping on them early in the second half,” said Atkins. “They fought back and put the pressure on us, caused some turnovers, and made it a game again. We closed it out at the end.”
“The guys came out and we were focused tonight. We regained our focus that we lost a little bit in the Georgetown game and the St. John’s game,” Martin added.
That focus will be required when the Irish play in the Big East Tournament quarterfinals on Thursday night. The opponent is TBD dependent on outcomes of the first two rounds.
Noteworthy
They have applied for sixth years, but Scott Martin and Tim Abromaitis were honored on senior day. “Sending Scott and Abro out on a win was huge for us,” said sophomore co-captain Eric Atkins.
Asked about his responsibilities as a senior, Martin said, “As the lone senior on the floor, it’s my responsibility to get everybody going and thinking and moving out there.
Adrian Dantley’s banner was added to the Ring of Honor at halftime. “I knew he was a great player,” Jack Cooley said after the game. “I’ve seen the highlights. He deserved to be up there.”
The Irish assisted on 20 of their 26 baskets, a 77% assist rate. For the conference season, the Irish assisted on 64% of their baskets, the eighth straight year they have been over 60%.
Providence made just 4 of its 20 three point shots, 20%. The Irish held conference opponents to a league best 25.5% from three point range.
Alex Dragicevich regained his scoring touch making 3 of his 5 shots from the field and scoring 12 points in 26 minutes on the floor. “I really felt good about Alex the last couple of days in practice,” said head coach Mike Brey. “You know what was the most amazing thing about him? He must have gotten his hands on 10 loose balls on the defensive end. Those were really big plays for us, and we are going to need a confident Alex Dragicevich moving forward.”
Jerian Grant is looking forward to the Big East Tournament. "Just to know that we have a double bye in the best conference in the country is really big," he said. "To know that we only have to win two games to get to Saturday night and play for the Big East championship gives this team a lot of confidence."
Basketball Stories
The matchup between No. 7 seed Notre Dame and No. 10 seed Xavier is one of the more intriguing of the first round games. One team came into the season with no expectations while another underachieved after a hot start.
When Notre Dame and Louisville last squared off the two programs were at two completely different places in the season. Rick Pitino’s Cardinals were 13-2 and ranked No. 10 nationally while the Fighting Irish were just 9-6 after suffering a 71-55 beat down at the hands of Cincinnati. At the time the Irish were also 0-5 in games played outside of South Bend.
If I saw it once, I saw it 100 times - Adrian Dantley mouthing those words as he took the ball from the referee and made a free throw to complete a three point play. Often enough, it was a three point play late in a game that cemented another Notre Dame victory.
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – In a season that continues to be anything but probable, Wednesday night’s Notre Dame – West Virginia basketball game at Purcell Pavilion at the Joyce Center was anything by ordinary. Just four days earlier, the Irish did their best Rocky impersonation in Philadelphia-pulling itself off the canvass and overcoming a 20-point deficit for an overtime win over Villanova.