The Notre Dame men’s basketball team opened plenty of its eyes in Saturday’s 84-63 win at Georgetown. The Irish showed their resolve, winning their first road game of the season. They had only claimed three true road games in the previous two seasons. Notre Dame also displayed growth, beating by 21 a Georgetown team it lost to in overtime at home last December.
Head coach Micah Shrewsberry mentioned that he and the Irish went into the game fully aware of Georgetown’s capabilities, turning that preparation into a strong effort on both ends.
“You prepare out of fear, and I’m always realistic with our guys. I think they were really locked in defensively,” Shrewsberry said after the game. “I think we’re a really good offensive team. They were really locked in defensively, and I think that’s where you see us kind of push ahead.”
In terms of shooting effectiveness, the Irish built up a distinct advantage throughout the afternoon. Notre Dame shot 59.3% from the field, 42.9% from three-point range and 91.7% from the free-throw line. Georgetown, on the other hand, posted a 31.4-25.0-68.8 line across those three areas of offense.
“[We wanted to] make them make tough contested shots, and I thought we did that,” Shrewsberry said. “ ... Last year, all of our time was spent on becoming a good defensive team, because I thought that was the only way we could hang in games — make it a game in the mud … As we’ve gotten better offensively, our defense hasn’t shifted at all.”
As the Irish head coach described it, Notre Dame played to score 60 points and hold teams to 60 points in order to win games. That put the Irish in position to score gritty victories over teams like Oklahoma State, Georgia Tech, Wake Forest and Clemson. The formula didn’t always succeed, with Notre Dame losing a handful of close, low-scoring games in the middle part of the season.
The Irish needed an offense to put them over the top. They feel they have one now. Instead of taking the “score 60, allow 60” approach, Shrewsberry now believes his team can score 80 points on the offensive end — they’ve done it in all three games to start this season — while remaining in form defensively.
Score 80, still hold to 60. That’s exactly what Notre Dame did on Saturday afternoon.
Notre Dame’s defense set the tone early, cornering Georgetown into an 0-for-14 shooting run after the Hoyas made two of their first three shots. Meanwhile, graduate guard Matt Allocco stepped into a heater on the other end of the floor. En route to scoring a game-high 17 points, the Princeton transfer tallied 15 on 4-for-5 shooting from the deep in the first half alone. He would also finish the day with seven assists and five rebounds.
Junior forward Tae Davis navigated early foul trouble to start strong as well. Following up a 27-point performance in Monday’s defeat of Buffalo, the Irish big man scored nine points in the first half, finishing the afternoon with 13 to go with eight boards.
At halftime, Notre Dame led Georgetown by a 44-29 score.
“We just kind of played pretty free-flowing offensively,” Shrewsberry said. “... Tae Davis is now getting more and more comfortable … Allocco is just a gamer. When the lights come on the brightest, he’s at his best.”
With Notre Dame’s depth the best it’s been in several years, the Irish took advantage and kept their foot on the gas in Washington. According to Shrewsberry, two graduate guards played a central role in building up Notre Dame’s lead off the bench. Burke Chebuhar, who did not play on Monday, returned to the rotation with nine points on 3-for-3 beyond-the-arc shooting. Nikita Konstantynovskyi added eight points and tied for the team lead with eight rebounds.
“I thought when those guys got in, they really settled us, because we use our bigs as ball-handlers, as passers, everything else,” Shrewsberry said. “To have two fifth-year seniors come in — they weren’t shook by the pressure — and that’s when we really started taking the lead out in the first half.”
Sophomore guard Markus Burton would jump in to keep the offense rolling to start the second half. The reigning ACC Freshman of the Year scored eight of Notre Dame’s 18 points at one stage, ending the day with 16 points on eight perfect free throws, five assists and six fouls drawn. Sophomore guard Braeden Shrewsberry also got going, registering the majority of his nine points after halftime.
Malik Mack (16 points, six rebounds and five assists), Jayden Epps (13 points) and Thomas Sorber (12 points, four assists) paced Georgetown’s play but couldn’t keep the Hoyas close. The Irish left Capital One Arena at 3-0 and with a happy flight home to South Bend.
“Road wins are gold, man. Everybody’s trying to get wins on the road. It doesn’t matter who you beat,” Shrewsberry explained. “Right now, we’ve talked about the ACC and how we help each other. We’ve gotta be good in non-conference — all of us… We’re just doing our part so we can get more [ACC] teams in the NCAA Tournament, hoping that the Fighting Irish is one of those teams.”
Notre Dame will look to keep its unbeaten start alive with back-to-back home games this week. The Irish will face North Dakota at 7 p.m. on Tuesday before hosting Elon at 7:30 p.m. on Friday.
