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Notre Dame Basketball

Notre Dame Cruises to 92-57 Win Over Robert Morris

November 9, 2019
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A couple of times early Saturday afternoon inside Purcell Pavilion, Robert Morris University had a chance to tie things up against host Notre Dame.

When the Colonials failed on consecutive possessions to even the score at 10, the Fighting Irish made sure their guests never received another opportunity.

Sparked off the bench by Dane Goodwin and Robby Carmody, as well as more of their stingy defense, the Irish sped away from the Colonials with a 29-12 run to the break for a 39-20 halftime lead.

The rest was mathematical: just how wide would Notre Dame’s winning margin be. Turns out, 35 points. The Irish had five players in double figures, paced by Goodwin’s 18, and had nine players score in their 92-57 win in the Men Against Breast Cancer Invitational in front of a crowd of 6,422 at Purcell Pavilion.

“Yeah, I think we sent a big message,” said the sophomore Goodwin, who was six-for-eight from the field and five-for-five at the free-throw line. “Tough game down (to open the season at North Carolina), we had a real shot to win that game and the maturity to come back into practice the next day, get after it a little bit, get after each other a little and come into today and play the way we did, I think it sent a big message.”

Notre Dame coach Mike Brey agreed after Prentiss Hubb (13), T.J. Gibbs (15) and John Mooney (10 points, 10 rebounds) fueled the Irish’s largest home-opening win in five years (Nov. 14, 2014, 82-39 against Binghamton).

“If we can get steals and we got turnovers and we can get defensive rebounds, we love to run because we’re really good with the ball,” Brey said. “We’re throwing the ball down the floor. There’s no set offense; we’re not walking it up. As I told you, we played with a 20-second shot-clock at the end of last season in practice and that was really for Hubb, because it jumpstarts him. We just want to play fast and guard and play fearlessly.

“This is what 20 home openers, and I don’t know if I’ve been more pleased about one, given what I need to see after last year and I kind of saw some stuff today, it’s like, that was really good to see here in November.”

After Notre Dame (1-1, 0-1 ACC) seized command across the final 10-plus minutes of the opening half, it proceeded to pick apart the Colonials (0-2) with thus far unseen offensive efficiency. The Irish sprinted out of the half on a 16-5 run fueled both by starters and a productive bench that accounted for 40 of their 92 points.

Hubb’s 13 points came in just 29 minutes; he and Gibbs combined for 28 points on nine of 16 shootings, including six-for-11 on threes.

“Helps the overall balance of our team. When guys come in, hit some shots and play some good defense, ultimately helps us even more than the starters, really,” Goodwin said. “Bring that spark and that energy that we’re capable of bringing.”

Carmody sensed in the Colonials’ defensive rotations that he could aggressively attack the basket, and he did just that in scoring 13 points and shooting six free throws.

“They were a little slow on some rotations sometimes, so we knew we could drive them,” Carmody said. “I just had a couple opportunities to get around guys and I tried to take it.

“That’s huge [bench production]; it’s really hard to like game plan for a team when the starters and the bench is scoring as well as we have been.”

Brey saw exactly what he wanted to see from a team he had challenged to better protect its home court in 2019-20.

“After the ACC Tournament and after a very tough year, we circled up before we came into the locker room here,” Brey said, “and I said, ‘Why do you think I have you out here? We have to make a stand here if we’re going to bounce back. We lost eight games in this building last year. We have to make a stand here.’

“And we talked about that before the game today, and I’m very pleased with how we came out with our demeanor. We like to defend, we can defend, we want to defend, we talk about defending and then our ‘O’ kicked in a little bit. We’re sharing the ball, we just made some of those open looks you hadn’t seen us make yet.”

Josh Williams led the Colonials with 21 points.

Notre Dame continues its play in the Men Against Breast Cancer Invitational Tuesday when it hosts Howard (7 p.m., ACC Network Extra).

Irish Sports Daily
Final Box Score 

 

 
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