Working without a map, Notre Dame waded into foreign territory Friday night, when it battled Connecticut for the right to play in Saturday’s Big East tournament championship game.
In its first six years in the conference, Notre Dame had won only one game in the Big East tournament. The Irish matched that total Thursday in their quarterfinal victory over St. John’s. They wouldn’t be able to exceed it Friday.
The Irish had never before played in a Big East game in which the stakes were so high.
The Huskies had. And it showed.
It showed in the poise and confidence of their players. It showed in the support of their fans, who turned Madison Square Garden into a virtual home floor for Connecticut. And it showed in the final score, 82-77 in favor of the Huskies.
“Being in Madison Square Garden on a Friday night is different,” Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun said. “We’ve been in some of these situations before and had some success in them. You know you’ve got to make some plays. Obviously we did.”
More, by the end, than the Irish.
Connecticut got off to a fast start, shooting better than 51 percent from the floor in the first half. The Irish, though, kept pace by battling on the boards. Notre Dame had 10 offensive rebounds in the first half, which it converted into 11 second-chance points.
Through the early going, this was a seesaw affair–there were 12 lead changes in the first half.
But the Huskies used a 7-2 run at the end of the half to go into the locker room leading 41-36.
Notre Dame countered with an 8-2 run of its own to snatch back the lead, 44-43, less than three minutes into the second half. But Caron Butler swished a three-pointer from the top of the key on the Huskies’ next trip down the floor, putting his team back on top 46-44. The Huskies would not relinquish that lead the rest of the game.
Notre Dame didn’t play badly, weathering a five-minute, 49-second scoreless streak in the second half to finish the night shooting 42 percent from the floor and 44 percent from beyond the three-point line.
After scoring just five points in the first half, freshman point guard Chris Thomas finished with a game-high 24, going 6-of-9 from the floor in the second half.
Ryan Humphrey scored 21, and Matt Carroll added 20. But David Graves, who came into the game averaging 14 points per game, scored only three, on a first-half three-pointer.
“That’s a tough night,” Notre Dame coach Mike Brey said. “We need Dave to score for us.”
Even more damaging was the fact that the Irish weren’t able to slow the Huskies defensively.
“If you would have told we we’d shoot 42 percent from the floor and score 77… I figured it would be enough,” Brey said. “I didn’t think we could get the stops when we really needed to get stops. They got big shots and got big offensive rebounds when they needed them.”
They got them from Butler, a sophomore, who scored 20, and Ben Gordon, a freshman, who added 19 off the bench.
Neither of those players was around when the Huskies won the NCAA title in 1999. But they have inherited the Connecticut championship tradition, which has been passed down from former players like Ray Allen, Richard Hamilton and Donyell Marshall.
Can teams feed off their history?
“No question,” Brey said.
Simply by sharing the floor with Connecticut Friday night, Notre Dame arrived at a place it had never been before. And with its effort, it took the first steps toward building its own championship tradition.
