Notre Dame Updates - and Some Levity from Rick Condon

3/9/2025

What’s this? Do I spy momentum for the Notre Dame men’s basketball team heading into the ACC tourney? Well, yes - some momentum, indeed. 

Two thrilling wins this week for the Irish should give them some confidence that they can win tight games. Wednesday night saw ND come from nine down in the second half and rally to a 56-54 win over a good Stanford Cardinal team. Markus Burton led all scorers with 24 points and Cole Certa played the part of hero with a corner three point swish to take the lead in the waning seconds.

Saturday afternoon featured lots of “free basketball” as Notre Dame and California needed 4 overtime sessions to determine a winner in the regular season finale for both teams. The Irish prevailed 112-110 in a game that featured countless tense moments. Burton and Matt Alloco each played over 53 minutes and combined for 67 points. Nikita Konstantynovskyi had the proverbial lunch pail game with 17 rebounds. 

So the wins described above clinched the Irish a place in the ACC tournament (which is, admittedly, a low hurdle). As for the Big Dance? They only need to win the ACC tourney (a rather large hurdle).

2/23/2025

Notre Dame started the week with a rare Wednesday night tilt against SMU. Less rare was the fact that they lost the game, 97-73. Braeden Shrewsberry led the Irish scoring with 21 points and the team got meaningful contributions from two freshman, Garrett Sundra and Sir Mohammed. SMU scored the first bucket 33 seconds into the game and never relinquished the lead.

On Saturday afternoon down two injured starters, Shrewsberry and Matt Allocco, Notre Dame turned things around and beat a decent Pittsburgh squad 76-72 at Purcell Pavillion. Unsurprisingly, Tae Davis and Markus Burton combined for 41 points to lead the scoring. Very surprisingly, the third leading scorer was little-used freshman Cole Certa. He had 12 points including three three pointers after coming into the game with two three pointers all season. For Pittsburgh the game was likely a death blow to their flickering tournament hopes. That is because the result was considered a Quad-2 loss in the NCAA NET rankings which is really just another way of saying that the loss was fugly.

2/162025

Notre Dame beat Boston College in double overtime on Wednesday night in Conte Forum 97-94. This season the Irish have had double digit leads in no less than five ACC matchups only to surrender the lead late and eventually lose. The Eagles game flipped that script as ND came back from as much as 14 points to grind out the victory. Markus Burton put up 32 points and improved his conference leading 23.0 points per game in ACC play.

Next up for Notre Dame is a home game Sunday night against the 19-6 Louisville Cardinals. Louisville has turned things around under new coach Pat Kelsey after a combined 12-52 record the past two years. Kelsey welcomed a ’24/’25 roster that includes 13 transfers, one freshman and one returnee from the ’23/’24 team. That is an incredible purge and restock in one offseason. I have to imagine that the first few practices were more summer camp ice breakers than drills and scrimmages. And all those scavenger hunts, trust falls, and two truths and a lie are paying off.

2/9/2025

Frustrating week for the Irish as they dropped games to both Florida State and Virginia Tech. They now have lost three in a row. Losing streaks aren’t new to Notre Dame this season, but this streak is extra “special” because they yielded double digit leads in all three losses. Ouch.

Tuesday night on the road, the Irish surrendered to the Seminoles, 67-60. Markus Burton and Tae Davis led the scoring with 25 and 14 points apiece in a back and forth game. But ultimately the 14 turnovers were too much to overcome. Then on Saturday it was the Hokies turn to take advantage of more uneven Irish play, defeating them in another close game, 65-63, in South Bend, IN. Burton and Davis (again!) provided the bulk of the offense, while Braeden Shrewsberry went 0 for 8 from the field and ended with a goose egg.

Saturday’s game was the second annual “574 Game”. 574 is the South Bend area code and the 574 game is intended to celebrate the local community and “what makes this place special.” According to ChatGPT, the #1 thing that makes South Bend special is “Notre Dame University” … whatever that is.

2/2/2025

Notre Dame wrapped up a week that was a microcosm for their season to date which is to say they won at home and lost on the road.

Tuesday night saw a come-from-behind victory over Georgia Tech, 71-68.  The Irish used a 13-0 run in the last five and half minutes to earn the win. Markus Burton led the scoring with 26 including 4 for 5 shooting from three point land. On Saturday, ND reverted to their uneven play away from Purcell Pavillion and coughed up an 11 point halftime lead to lose to Miami, 63-57. Remarkably, the Irish shot an OK 43% from the field but a really not OK 22% from the free throw line. Their 2 for 9 performance from the charity stripe was lethal. As in self inflicted lethal. Meaning suicide. Or … well, you get the point.

Honestly not sure which is worse. 9 attempts is bad, but a 22% success rate is REALLY bad. For context, at that pace they would have needed 30 MORE attempts to overcome the deficit. LOL.

1/26/2025

Notre Dame played only one game this week as they had their mid-week bye. They made it count, though, with an impressive 74-59 road win against Virginia. Markus Burton led the way with 21 points marking the fourth game in a row that he has scored more than 20. The Irish shot 48% overall from the field and 52% from three point territory. ND jumped out to a 14-3 lead and were mostly in control the rest of the way. The Cavaliers made a number of small runs to get them closer, but a Nikita Konstantynovskyi layup gave Notre Dame their largest lead of the game to that point (53-32) with just over 12 minutes remaining and it was smooth sailing the rest of the way.

Konstantynovskyi. Is that last letter really necessary? Kinda feels like he might be trolling us.

1/19/2025

Up and down week for Notre Dame.

On Monday night at home, the Irish snapped a four game losing streak by beating Boston College 78-60. Tae Davis led the scoring with 26 points and Markus Burton added 20. ND also had a season high 13 steals in a game that started very choppy before they were able to pull away. On Saturday afternoon, Notre Dame came out white hot starting the game with an 11 point run before opening up a 17 point lead and then cruising to victory giving it all back in the second half and losing. The game ended with Syracuse players celebrating the comeback and Irish coach Micah Shrewsberry having to be restrained by his assistants as he went after referee Brian O’Connell. Not good.

Just proves the old adage that no lead is safe against those 9-9 Orange.

1/12/2025

Notre Dame wrapped up a two game swing in the state of North Carolina with an 86-78 loss to No. 4 Duke on Saturday as their losing streak hit five. The Irish fought hard and made it interesting late, but ultimately could not come back from several double-digit deficits. They were led by their backcourt trio of Markus Burton, Braeden Shrewsberry, and Sir Mohammed who combined for 48 points on the afternoon. The day belonged to Duke star Cooper Flagg who set a program and ACC freshman scoring record with 42 points.

In fact, the week belonged to Flagg as this past Tuesday he went viral when he “posterized” poor Guillermo Diaz Graham of the Pittsburgh Panthers.

If you have seen the dunk, you would have to agree with The Offspring. You know, pretty fly for a white guy.

1/5/2025

Markus Burton is back. And so is the Fighting Irish basketball team's propensity for streaks; this time a losing one. 

A yo-yo start to the season (win four in a row, lose five, win three, lose two and counting) has Notre Dame firmly at .500 or 7-7. This week saw two losses; one on the road at Georgia Tech, 86-75, and the other a heartbreaker at home vs. North Carolina 74-73. The loss to the Tar Heels was Burton’s first game since November 26th and he was solid, scoring 23 points in 23 minutes of action. However, his contested shot at the buzzer did not fall as the Irish came up short. They now play six of their next eight games on the road including two this week in the state of North Carolina (NC State and Duke).

So, there. I made it all the way through this article without mentioning the football team’s resounding win over Georgia for a spot in the semifinals of the College Football Playoff!

Well … almost made it.

12/29/2024

Last Sunday night, Notre Dame played its only game in a 20 day stretch, easily defeating Le Moyne College, 91-62. The win was the third straight for the Irish as they improved to 6-1 at home and also wrapped up non-conference play for the season. Tae Davis led the way with 24 points and Coach Micah Shrewsberry deployed 14 players in all before the night was over. They hit the road this week to play Georgia Tech on Tuesday night.

Le Moyne College is in landlocked, upstate New York and its mascot is the Dolphin. That seems kind of weird, so I went looking for an explanation. Ultimately I found a 527-word tome on their athletic teams’ website that included allusions to the school’s Jesuit affiliation and a long story involving Greek words, the island of Sicily, and, somehow, “conjugal love”.  OK, fine - I didn’t previously know that Dolphins have been used as a Christian symbol since the second century A.D. to represent love, tenderness and the desire for knowledge.

But … Dolphins in Syracuse? Still weird.

12/22/2024

No games this past week for Notre Dame. They wrap up non-conference play Sunday evening against Le Moyne. So let’s turn our attention to the football field ...

On Friday night, Notre Dame and Indiana played the first game of the newly-expanded college football playoff in frigid South Bend. After the two teams traded early interceptions, Jeremiyah Love ripped off a 98-yard touchdown run and the Irish never looked back; winning 27-17 and advancing into the quarterfinals against Georgia. Brash talking Indiana Coach Curt Cignetti stopped by the College GameDay set before the game and dropped this priceless quote; “We don’t just beat top 25 teams, we beat the s—t out of them.” 

Umm what? Maybe he is caught up in all that disinformation stuff going on in the world right now. Maybe just a little overhyped for his first CFP appearance. Maybe just not super smart. IDK, but time for a fact check: IU’s impressive 10-1 regular season featured exactly zero wins against top 25 teams, much less any blowout wins. 

And after their first CFP appearance? Yeah, still zero.

12/15/2024

Fairly quiet week for Notre Dame. On Wednesday night the Irish took care of business at home against Dartmouth, winning 77-65 and notching their second straight victory. Braedon Shrewsberry and Tae Davis led the way combining for 42 points and 13 rebounds. Notre Dame is now in an extended break for finals and don’t play again until next Sunday when they wrap up non-conference play against Le Moyne in South Bend.

Incidentally, for fans of other college basketball programs, “finals” are the exams at the end of a semester that are generally weighted heavily in determining grades.

12/8/2024

On Saturday, Notre Dame halted its five game losing streak with a 69-64 home win over Syracuse in the ACC opener for both teams. Each team has had a bumpy path to get to conference play and both the Irish and the Orange are without their respective leading scorers, Markus Burton and J. J. Starling.. The game featured many lead changes and a second half where no team led by more than three until the two minute mark. What the game did not feature was skillful Syracuse long range shooting. They were held without a three-point field goal for the first time in over ten years. In fact, they only attempted nine triples in total (later that night, the Boston Celtics would attempt 60 of them, but I digress).

Syracuse guard, Elijah Moore, said after the game, “Mentally, we were so focused on getting the ball inside that we didn’t realize that we weren’t taking any shots.” Now that is the situational court awareness every coach is looking for. Or not …

11/30/24

Tough week for the Irish. Not even four minutes into Notre Dame’s 85-84 OT loss to Rutgers on Tuesday, Markus Burton went down with a knee injury. In related news, the team then lost their next two games; Thursday to Houston, 65-54, and Saturday to Creighton, 80-76. All three losses were part of the inaugural Players Era Festival in Paradise, NV. 

Paradise is an unincorporated town adjacent to the City of Las Vegas. And, no, what happens in Paradise does not stay in Paradise. Those three losses “count” and put ND level on the year, 4-4. And the injury to Burton is likely to keep him out for several weeks. 

Ugh.

11/24/2024

Notre Dame had a pair of home games this past week starting Tuesday with a comfortable win over another ND, North Dakota, 75-58. However, Friday brought the first loss of the season for the Irish as Elon came in to Purcell Pavilion and emerged with an 85-77 win. It was a bad loss - the kind that can come back to haunt them if they are in the tournament mix at the end of the season.

Elon is coached by former (1991-1995) Irish player, Billy Taylor. Taylor is an interesting story in that he walked away from an accounting career in his twenties to pursue his dream of coaching college basketball. Hey. Cool. That means he and I actually have very similar LinkedIn profiles; Notre Dame grad, worked at Arthur Andersen, became a CPA … then found our way to big time college basketball. Him coaching the D1 Phoenix to big wins and me writing snarky hoop blurbs for whatever this site is. 

Same same.

11/17/2024

The Irish had a very productive week with wins on Monday night at home over Buffalo, 86-77, and on the road at Georgetown on Saturday afternoon, 84-63. The win over the Hoyas avenged a painful overtime loss last year in South Bend. Also, this past Tuesday was the beginning of the early commitment period for recruits. Notre Dame garnered four National Letters of Intent, er, Athletic Aid Agreements resulting in their best mens basketball haul in the modern era.

Jalen Haralson, a five-star player from within Indiana, was the marquee signing. During an interview following his verbal commitment in October, Jalen said, among other things, “I really don’t know much about Notre Dame.” As a proud alum of the school, I have mixed feelings about the apparent new recruiting strategy of keeping prospects ill informed about the university. 

But, alas, whatever works ...  

11/9/2024

I will spare you a lengthy season preview for the 2024/2025 ND men’s basketball team. All you need to know is that the backcourt is solid, help is on the way next year with a great recruiting class, and any realistic goal for this season tops out at an NIT bid. Actually the bar for success is low - like super low. Last year the Irish had 20 losses for the second straight year, a first in the program’s history. So they really just need to lose 19 (or less). Put another way; they only need to win 12 games (or more). 

Wednesday night they took a step in the right direction taking down fellow Congregation of Holy Cross school, Stonehill College, 89-60 in South Bend.

One win down. Eleven to go.