The Notre Dame men’s basketball team’s latest effort to prove it can win on the road is off to a rocky start. The #22-ranked Irish (4-2 in the Big East, 16-3 overall) trail unranked St. John’s (2-4 in the Big East, 11-8 overall), 44-33 late in the first half.
After this game and Saturday’s home date with Villanova, Notre Dame (13-0 at home, 1-1 on neutral sites, 0-2 on the road) has three consecutive Big East road games, two of them against better teams than St. John’s. So if we don’t win this one, I’m going to be officially worried.
P.S. Among this season’s previous home losses by St. John’s: 68-59 to UConn, 78-65 to Illinois State, and 92-60 to Maryland — a team Notre Dame beat on a neutral court. So it’s not like the Red Storm are invincible at home.
UPDATE: It’s 49-41 at the half.
UPDATE 2: Someone must have told Mike Brey that BrendanLoy.com was losing faith in him, because he apparently gave quite a halftime speech. :) His boys have opened the second half on an 11-0 run and lead 52-49. Go Irish!
UPDATE 3: It wasn’t enough. St. John’s 71, Notre Dame 68, final. Yikes. Now 0-3 on the road.
Notre Dame is looking more and more like a paper tiger. It’s easy to inflate your record by winning a lot of home games over teams like Elon and Winston-Salem State. It’s hard to win on the road. Notre Dame has done a lot of the easy and not very much of the hard.
UPDATE 4: Maybe it isn’t Mike Brey’s fault… maybe it’s mine. Maybe I jinxed the Irish when I wrote earlier today, “[H]ow big does the February 24 game at the Joyce Center, #22 Notre Dame vs. #15 Marquette, loom right now? … Knock on wood, but it’s not inconceivable that Marquette @ ND could have Big East regular-season championship implications. I may just add it to my countdown sidebar.”
Well, I just removed it from my countdown sidebar. Hopefully that’ll undo the jinx. :)
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Categories: Notre Dame, NCAA Basketball & Pools
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January 23rd, 2007 at 10:04:05 pm
While I realize K-Mac has been effectively out of the lineup since the start of the new year, I have to wonder whether the news of the official decision had any bearing on the game, especially the first half. They surely miss his ball handling skills, that’s for certain. If I were an uncommitted PG at this point in time, I’d give some serious consideration to heading to ND. They’ve got a lot of key elements in place that could do some damage in the future. Of course, Carter is done after this, but he’s making quite the name for himself (save that last poor shot decision in this game).
However, this year, without a PG that can stand his own, it’s tough for me to see them moving much further past the round of 32. There is still a lot of basketball to be played, and we’ll see how they bounce back against Nova at home Saturday.
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:08:44 pm
At this point, I don’t care how they bounce back against Nova at home. I want to see how they play in the 3-game road trip after the Nova game. The inability to win on the road is getting ridiculous.
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:18:48 pm
True, true. I thought about that, but after being at work for 30 hours already this week, I was having trouble thinking of who they play after Nova. However, by giving in and opening the schedule on und.com, I realize the three game stretch is at Cuse, at USF, and at DePaul. Before tonight, I would have counted all three as Ws; now, I’m more skeptical.
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:50:27 pm
Im looking for 2 tickets for saturday vs. Villanova. Any ideas on the way to find some?
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:53:29 pm
Are you a student? Or, can you get your hands on a student ID that looks passably like you? And the same for whoever the second person is? If so, you can simply get the ticket stub from the ticket booklet of any student season-ticket holder who isn’t going to the game. Unlike with football tickets, the individual stubs are freely transferrable among students. Unfortunately, Becky and I are planning to go, so I can’t help you, but maybe someone else will comment helpfully here…
January 24th, 2007 at 1:11:11 pm
Not a student. Have family in SB who are all alumni. Dont want to pay on stubhub.com. The wife and I will find a way, my uncle is a family doctor for the football staff’s family. That is usually how we get football tickets. I was just wondering if we could get our hands on some student seats…
Can’t wait much longer for March Madness…
January 24th, 2007 at 1:52:29 pm
Brian, I’m pretty sure they do look for IDs at the student entrance, though they probably don’t look at them too closely. So you’d need to borrow someone’s ID that looks plausibly somewhat like you. Come to think of it, you could probably get your wife in, or vice versa, with an ID for one of you and a copy of your marriage certificate — they always let Becky in on that basis. But then, I doubt you carry a copy of your marriage certificate around in your wallet, like I do. Comes in very handy at Notre Dame. :)
January 24th, 2007 at 8:00:23 pm
that is pretty funny. Never heard of that before. Should be a fun game. If we dont make it… suggestions for the post game pub? Corbys?