The locker room door swung open and out popped Mike Brey, his standard-issue mock turtleneck replaced by one of the camouflage Notre Dame basketball T-shirts doled out Thursday night.
“All right!” the Irish coach chirped. “I’m in uniform!”
Generally, military-style gear is ideally worn before a pitched battle, not afterward on the way to a radio interview. But then Notre Dame’s exasperating 81-74 overtime victory over Providence was clearly worthy of fatigue, sartorial and otherwise.
Thanks to a Luke Harangody play that no one could explain, Tory Jackson completely disregarding a defensive assignment to make a steal and hot overtime shooting, a most serious threat to the vaunted Joyce Center winning streak, now at 32 games, was averted.
Barely.
“We haven’t been down at home like that probably since Villanova last year,” said Harangody, who scored a career-high 31 points and snared 14 rebounds. “We were down a couple of buckets and everyone stayed strong, didn’t get out of character at all and just played with confidence.”
Again, barely. The Irish (15-4, 5-2) went the last seven minutes of regulation without a field goal. They were outhustled and outworked by Providence (12-8, 3-5), which snared 22 offensive rebounds for 27 second-chance points, compensating for 8 of 33 shooting from three-point range.
Put on all the camouflage you want, there was no hiding from imminent disaster when an 11-1 run gave the Friars a 61-59 lead with a minute left in regulation.
“You don’t get nervous,” Jackson said. “You just look at it like, man, it’s one of those days. The rim was like a Cheerio, it was so small. We couldn’t knock down anything. But it opened up for us in overtime and we finished.”
The Irish wouldn’t have had the chance but for a couple of fortuitous plays from their sophomore standouts.
With about 20 seconds to go in regulation, Providence’s Geoff McDermott corralled a potential game-sealing defensive rebound and then promptly lost the ball to Harangody while attempting an ill-advised outlet. Harangody was fouled on an ensuing shot and made both free throws to knot it at 61-61 with 18.7 seconds left.
“He just tossed it right to me,” Harangody said. “I was kind of shocked he had it. Right place at the right time.”
Then Jackson was in the wrong place at the right time, freelancing from his assignment on the other end for a steal on Providence’s last regulation possession, sending matters into the extra session.
In the overtime, the Irish hit 5 of 6 field goals and 8 of 10 from the line. Harangody and Jackson combined for 11 of the Irish’s 20 points in overtime, including six in a row between them that pushed the Irish lead to nine.
“I’m really proud of our group,” Brey said, “because I think there were a couple of times there where you could say, ‘Not tonight.'”
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bchamilton@tribune.com
