Chris Thomas was close to catching the pass, close to pulling it down and putting it up, close to taking a final shot that would have given Notre Dame a final chance.
But that slightly high, errant pass simply reinforced a painful lesson the Irish have been learning all season: Close doesn’t cut it.
So it was that Notre Dame dropped its fourth consecutive road game Saturday, falling 68-66 to No. 18 Pittsburgh at the Petersen Events Center. The four losses have come by a total of 11 points.
That the Irish (14-7, 6-5 Big East) were even in this game at all was a testament to its veteran backcourt.
On a day when Notre Dame’s big men played extremely small, senior Chris Thomas and junior Chris Quinn stood head and shoulders above the rest of the Irish cast.
Thomas finished with 16 points on 6-of-12 shooting, 4 of 5 on three-pointers. Quinn was even better, 10 of 15, including 5 of 6 on three-pointers, to finish with a game-high 25 points.
More importantly, Quinn single-handedly kept the Irish in the game at the end.
With Pittsburgh leading 61-56, Quinn hit a jumper, Notre Dame’s first two-point basket of the second half, with 2 minutes 48 seconds left.
One Pittsburgh turnover and 22 seconds later, Quinn hit another jumper to make it 61-60. He then stole the ball and raced in for a layup to give the Irish a one-point lead with 1:57 to play.
It wouldn’t be enough.
The Panthers (17-4, 7-3) held forward Torin Francis to one point. Forward Rick Cornett, too, scored one, while forward Dennis Latimore had only two. Guard Colin Falls, who had 23 points in Notre Dame’s upset of previously unbeaten Boston College on Tuesday night, was 2 of 11, 1 of 10 on three-pointers.
“We said the game was going to be won down low,” Thomas said. “We shot the ball well, extremely well from the three-point line. But not having an inside presence, that hurt us.”
Especially at the end.
With 9.6 seconds left, Pittsburgh point guard Carl Krauser, who finished with a team-high 16 points despite missing a long stretch after having two teeth knocked out in a second-half fall, made a short runner to break a 65-65 tie.
Moments later Thomas found Cornett under the basket. But Cornett was fouled and unable to finish and had to settle for two free-throw attempts.
He missed the first and hit the second to cut Pittsburgh’s lead to 67-66 with 4.3 seconds left.
After a foul, Pittsburgh’s Ronald Ramon hit just one of two free throws, so with 2.5 seconds left, the Irish got the ball back. But Cornett, inbounding from the end line, overthrew Thomas with the last pass landing in Pittsburgh hands.
“Everybody did it today, offensively and defensively,” said Ramon, who came off the bench to score 13 for the Panthers.
The Irish also didn’t get much help from the officials, who called only one first-half foul on the Panthers. Notre Dame finished the game with 10 free-throw attempts, 12 fewer than Pittsburgh.
“I still feel like we did what it takes to win,” Thomas said.
The Irish, as they have done all too often, only got close.
