Knowing the future brings no cure for Notre Dame’s present in loss to Boston College
Perhaps, Mike Brey thought, the Thursday announcement that he is stepping away as Notre Dame head coach at season’s end could finally unlock the confidence he has been trying to inject in the Irish amid their 4-10 backslide.
Make no mistake, Brey and Notre Dame did not reach this decision to salvage a lost season. But one theoretical benefit to announcing it with 12 regular-season games left was its potential to reinforce the Irish really have nothing to lose. Everyone knows what’s coming. Speculation won’t fester. Easy to be loose when there’s little suspense.
“We’re all joined at the hip to do it, especially the seniors,” Brey said Friday.
Maybe playing for pride and the relief of knowing the end will spark a run eventually. But it did not birth a different result Saturday, Notre Dame’s first game after the announcement about Brey’s future. The Irish lost to Boston College 84-72, their sixth defeat in seven games. They’re 9-11 and 1-8 in the ACC, and were swept by the Eagles (9-11, 3-7) for the first time since they joined the ACC in 2014.
There were moments of togetherness, but not nearly enough to outdo the tenseness that has enveloped the program in recent weeks or cover up the on-court deficiencies that appear beyond repair.
The former, at times, seems to have Superman’s grip on the team. Knowing the outcome might help the mood, but it doesn’t erase the disappointment of a season that began with grand visions yet is tracking toward a finish near the bottom of the ACC.
“There’s a lot weighing on the group from the inevitable fact that we are where we are,” guard Cormac Ryan said.
Any motivation that comes from a desire to send Brey out on a positive note — not an angle Brey or players leaned into — carries a reminder that the reason he’s on the way out now is a season that veered way off script. Notre Dame had only pride to play for well before the decision to bring in a new voice was publicly revealed. Realistic NCAA Tournament dreams were vanquished weeks ago. Confidence went with them, and the Irish are discovering that it’s hard to keep for longer than a couple spurts in a game.
“A tough thing for any human being to do is to persevere through adversity, especially when you had expectations that might not have gone the way you want to,” Ryan said.
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Brey’s focus is to keep taking swings at it, because he, his staff and the players know no other way. They’re still competitors who want to win for winning’s sake.
“There’s no class they ever took at Notre Dame that can have them figure out, ‘Boy, we’re working out of it, and can we still stay together and do it together?’” Brey said. “I have the utmost confidence they will.”
Saturday, though, did not present much evidence a breakthrough is imminent. Notre Dame had trouble defending yet another big man, a season-long bugaboo that has an irreparable aura. Boston College 7-footer Quinten Post hung a career-high 29 points and 14 rebounds on the Irish, inflicting damage from beyond the arc and in the paint. He scored 11 of the Eagles’ first 12 points, including 3 three-pointers. He had made two threes in six games prior to Saturday. He had four offensive rebounds and drew five fouls.
Notre Dame didn’t fare much better defending the three elsewhere, even against the ACC’s worst shooting team. Boston College was shooting 27.5 percent from beyond the arc entering Saturday’s game and are bottom-25 nationally in three-point volume. The Eagles went 11 of 19 against the Irish.
The result was Notre Dame playing from behind for nearly 28 minutes and trailing by as many as 14 points in the second half.
The Irish had some pride and some fight, though, enough to play a suspenseful game for 39 minutes. They absorbed a sluggish start to take a 30-21 lead, built largely on forward Nate Laszewski’s three-point shooting. Their answer to that 14-point hole was a 22-7 run that gave them a 57-56 lead with 10:07 left, courtesy of a Ryan three-pointer. Laszewski, who finished with a career-high 29 points, made two threes in a 33-second span as part of the outburst.
“It didn’t look very encouraging, but we came back and took the lead,” Brey said.
But Boston College weathered it and scored on six straight possessions before the Irish could build on the one-point advantage. The last of those six ended with Makai Ashton-Langford’s layup, putting the Eagles ahead 72-68. They led by at least three points the rest of the way. Notre Dame didn’t fold, but hanging in there against a sub.-500 opponent at home isn’t exactly an injection of mojo. Not for this team, which has hung around but ended up a couple stops or a couple makes short enough times this year.
“It’s a mental hurdle,” Brey said. “You see it in sports. It’s the worst nightmare ever when you’re the coach of a group like that — are we waiting for it to happen to us? You probably need a little luck and the other team to help you some.”
