WBB | Notre Dame On the Road This Weekend
Notre Dame moved to 13-1 for the season and 1-0 in the ACC after thumping Pittsburgh 100-44 at Purcell Pavilion on Thursday night. Sunday afternoon, the Irish travel to Atlanta to play a young Georgia Tech team. The Yellow Jackets are 11-3 and 1-0 in the conference after winning at Boston College 81-76 Thursday night.
Freshman Elizabeth Balogun, a 6’1” guard, led Georgia Tech with 18 points and 17 rebounds in the BC game. Fellow freshman Elizabeth Dixon, a 6’5” forward, added 12 points and 10 boards, while 5’9” sophomore guard Kierra Fletcher scored 18.
For the season, Balogun is Tech’s leading scorer at 14.8 points per game. She shoots 47.1% from the field and 37.7% from three, but only 63.3% from the free throw line. She adds 5.4 rebounds per game.
Francesca Pan, a 6’1” junior guard from Italy, is second in scoring at 13.9 points per game. Pan is shooting 36.1% from the field and 32.3% from three. Roughly half her shot attempts are from beyond the arc. She’s made 31 on the season. She’s the team’s best free throw shooter at 82.8%.
Dixon averages 10.2 points and 6.8 rebounds a game and Fletcher chips in with 9.1 points and 5.5 rebounds.
The fifth starter is Lorela Cubaj, a 6’4” sophomore forward from Italy. She averages 6.5 points and 6.0 rebounds per game. She’s also blocked 17 shots.
The top reserves are Lotta-Maj Lahtinen, a 5’7” freshman guard from Finland and Chanin Scott, a 6” junior guard, who averages 7.4 points per game.
Georgia Tech starts two freshmen, two sophomores and one junior and the top reserves are a freshman and junior. The five starters have taken the floor at the start of all 14 games so far this season.
As a team, the Yellow Jackets average 73.1 points and hold their opponents to 60.4 points. They shoot 42% from the field and 33% from three. They average 5.5 made threes per game. They commit 18.1 turnovers per game vs 12.4 assists for an A/TO ratio of 0.7. They do force their opponents into 21.4 turnovers per game and they block an average of 4.5 shots per contest.
Georgia Tech is one of the teams Notre Dame plays twice during the regular season, and they will come to Purcell Pavilion on Sunday, February 3rd. Last season, ND won 77-54 in Atlanta and 85-69 at home. Tech finished 6-10 in conference last season. Their overall record was 20-13. The Yellow Jackets’ last NCAA playoff invitation was in 2014.
Sunday’s game is scheduled to tip off at 3:00pm. The Raycom Network is providing television coverage through a number of cable providers. The game will also be available via the ESPN app.
Irish Notes: The Irish have been on a hot streak the last six games — averaging 91.8 points per game and shooting 58.4% from the field (62% from two and 43.7% from three). They’re also hitting 80% of their free throws. ND averaged 88.6 points per game for the first eight games of the season shooting 48.5% from the field (52.7% from two and just 27.7% from three) and 72% from the free throw line. ND is averaging 5.2 made threes over the last six games vs 3.3 over the first eight.
The Irish are moving and passing the ball much better — they’re averaging 23.3 assists per game with an A/TO ratio of 1.5 over the last six games. They averaged 16.5 assists over the first eight games with an A/TO ratio of 1.2
Through 14 games, Notre Dame is averaging 90 points a game. They’re winning by an average margin of victory of 25.9 points. The Irish average 18.1 fast break points per game while surrendering just 4.6. They average 52 points in the paint to 27.7 for their opponents.
While Notre Dame blitzed Pittsburgh from the start on Thursday night, the Irish really go to work in the 2nd and 3rd quarters outscoring the opposition by an average of 50.1 points to 29.4. The Irish only outscore the opposition by 4 points, on average, in the first quarter