Notre Dame Cruises Past Virginia, 74-59
Off the heels of some red-hot three point shooting, Notre Dame cruised to a 74-59 victory over Virginia Saturday night in Charlottesville. The win marked the first time in program history the Irish have won in John Paul Jones Arena. Before Saturday, Notre Dame was 0-9 on the road against Virginia.
The Irish were led by Markus Burton who had a team-high 21 points, hitting four threes. As a whole Notre Dame was deadly from beyond the arc, hitting threes at a 52% clip. Three consecutive triple to open the second half ballooned the lead to 20, and the Irish never looked back to move to 9-10 (3-5).
“He’s an preseason all-conference performer for a reason,” Virginia head coach Ron Sanchez said. “He’s good, he’s really talented. He was a major focus today. We didn’t do the job we needed to do on him.”
Looking to snap their seven-game ACC road losing streak, the Irish were in a tough battle with the Cavaliers in the first minutes of Saturday’s night matchup. Both schools entered the game cold shooting, but sophomore guard Markus Burton soon got rolling. The Indiana native knocked down two free throws and a fast break triple to open up an early 5-0 lead for Notre Dame.
The first half quickly turned into a game of runs as Burton was fouled on a triple that he knocked down, hitting a free throw to convert a four-point play. Senior guard Julian Roper II hit a three, only his third of the year, to push the lead to 14-3.
With Virginia quickly finding itself in a double-digit hole, guard Isaac McKneely kept pace with the Irish. The junior knocked down three triples and was the only Cavalier scorer in the first 10 minutes of action.
Besides Burton most of the Irish were cold on the offensive end for much of the half, shooting just 27% from the field in the first 12 minutes. Junior forward Tae Davis put an end to McKneely’s shooting barrage, doing work down low to convert two buckets and get the lead back to double digits.
McKneely continued to be the only Cavalier to have any offensive impact as he hit his fourth three to get up to 14 points. His three cut the Irish lead to just four and capped off a 7-0 run. With Burton on the bench, the Irish were just 1-8 from the field, allowing Virginia to get back into the game.
But as soon as Burton and the rest of the starting lineup got back onto the court to finish the first half, the lead ballooned back up to double digits. The Irish were moving the ball at an excellent pace, giving open looks to Burton, who knocked down two more triples to bring his total up to 15, and Shrewsberry who hit a triple of his own to extend the lead to 14.
Going into the halftime locker room, besides McKneely the rest of the Cavaliers were 6-22 from the field.
The Irish maintained their hot three-point shooting in the second half as Shrewsberry, Allocco and Kebba Njie all knocked down triples to push the lead to 17.
“They just set really good screens for their shooters,” Sanchez said. “We shouldn’t have that level of seperation on guys that we consider green guys on our scouting report.”
Unlike the Irish, the Cavaliers weren’t able to carry over their shooting into the second half as McKneely went cold, missing three shots to open the second frame, and was held scoreless for the entire half. His teammates weren’t helping him out much as Virginia went over six minutes without hitting a shot from the floor.
“I think that when you don’t shoot the ball well it impacts your defense,” Sanchez said. “When the ball is going in everything seems to flow a little easier.”
With Notre Dame shooting 10-20 from three-point range, it was also having success inside. Freshman guard Sir Mohammed put the ball on the wood and went to work, driving inside and hitting a physical layup to extend the lead to 20 with just over 10 minutes to play.
With less than eight minutes to play, the Irish fell asleep at the wheel for a moment. Virginia went on a quick 10-0 run much to the thanks of five turnovers at the hands of the Irish. Not to help matters, Burton went to the locker room with a noticeable limp. He quickly returned to the court to help Notre Dame close out.
Notre Dame will be back in action Jan. 28 in South Bend as it takes on Georgia Tech. Tipoff scheduled for 9:00 p.m. on the ACC Network.