Even from a distance they looked intimidating: long and lean, agile and quick.
Back in late December, Mike Brey and his Notre Dame team shared a tournament dinner with Miami, which, like the Irish, was playing in the Sugar Bowl Classic.
“They came walking in and I choked,” Brey said.
Better in the banquet hall than on the basketball court.
Saturday night, when it really mattered, the Irish didn’t choke. Behind freshman Chris Thomas’ 32 points they chewed up No. 17 Miami 90-77 at Miami Arena, handing the Hurricanes their second home loss of the season.
Notre Dame upped its record to 19-8 overall and 9-5 in the Big East, strengthening its case for an NCAA tournament bid. Miami is 21-6, 8-6.
As they have all season the Irish trumped their opponents’ superior athletic ability with tenacity.
“We got outrebounded again (44-31) and that was the turning point,” Miami forward Darius Rice said.
The Irish also outshot the Hurricanes, hitting 49 percent from the field to Miami’s 42 percent.
Rice was 0-for-3 on three-pointers in the first half as Miami fell behind 39-34, but he heated up after the break, hitting 6-of-9 three-pointers on his way to 23 points.
“When he gets in his rhythm, even when you’re up on him, he can still shoot over you,” Irish forward David Graves said of Rice.
Graves, however, was in a rhythm of his own, hitting 4-of-5 three-pointers in the second half and finishing with 18 points.
“Graves hit one every time I hit one so we really didn’t gain any ground,” Rice said.
Thomas, meanwhile, hit 6-of-12 three-pointers. His 32 points matched his career-high and were the most scored by an individual against the Hurricanes this season.
Thomas also had 12 assists and six rebounds.
“Game plan was to control him, and obviously we didn’t do that,” Miami coach Perry Clark said. “You can’t let a guy like that be a playmaker and a scorer. What you want to try to do is make him be one or the other, but we really didn’t do a very good job with either.”
Torrian Jones, starting in place of injured Matt Carroll, put up a career-high 17 points on 6-for-9 shooting.
“He put up Matt Carroll-type numbers,” Graves said.
With 6:13 left to play Thomas hit a three-pointer from the left baseline to stretch the Irish advantage to 11.
“In the back of my mind I was like, `We’ve got this. We’ve just got to stay calm,’ and that’s what we did,” Thomas said.
“They’re real big and long, but coach told me to get underneath them, and that’s what I did,” Thomas said. “They were shocked to see us going up and down the court like that.”
