The only thing consistent about Notre Dame's season thus far has been its inconsistency throughout ups and downs, Irish coach Kevin Corrigan said.
"I'm going to go back to what I [said] before, and I think the Georgetown game proved it to be true," Corrigan said. "We can do everything we're asking our guys to do — not only can we do, but we have done. What we haven't done is do it for 60 minutes."
The lack of consistency has helped land the Irish (5-5, 0-3 Big East) in the midst of their longest losing streak of the season. It has been nearly a month since the squad felt the thrill of victory in a March 20 overtime victory over Ohio State. Since that time, Notre Dame has dropped three games, all in the conference.
The Irish will look to break that streak Saturday when Providence (0-9, 0-2) visits South Bend. Both teams will play with an obvious sense of urgency as the bottom two teams in the Big East standings. The Irish have only two regular-season games remaining after Saturday, one of which is against national powerhouse Syracuse.
To pull off the victory, the Irish will have to contend with a Providence squad that offers multiple looks in order to gain a tactical advantage — a difficult task to accomplish when the Irish are already struggling with consistency.
"They do a good job of dictating tempo and mixing up what they're doing defensively," Corrigan said. "You have to adjust to what they're doing because they'll do a lot of different things in the course of the day."
Midfielder Mike Feldberg will be Providence's most potent scoring threat and will probably look to connect with fellow midfielder Jake Nolan, who leads the Friars in assists and points. Providence will try and slow the game down in order to play to their strengths offensively, an uncommon tactic in a typically fast-paced sport, Corrigan said.
"Offensively they try to take the air out of the ball a little bit and slow things down," he said. "They're effective with it, and they're able to keep themselves close in games."
Despite the challenges the Friars pose, the buzzword for the Irish will continue to be consistency as they look to put together a complete game in the season's home stretch.
"You can't be successful [when you're inconsistent], and that's been a problem for us throughout this year," Corrigan said. "We need to try to get on top of them."
Notre Dame looks to snap its three-game losing streak at noon Saturday in Arlotta Stadium.
