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NCAA Tournament Preview: Notre Dame Vs. Michigan

NOTRE DAME (21-11) VS. MICHIGAN (23-12)

Where: The Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Rankings: Both teams are unranked.

Time/TV: 9:40 p.m. ET on CBS.

Mike Brey and the Irish hope to advance in the NCAA Tournament for the second straight year.
Mike Brey and the Irish hope to advance in the NCAA Tournament for the second straight year. (Anthony Gruppuso-USA TODAY Sports)
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Notre Dame Notes

The Irish are coming off a crushing 78-47 loss to North Carolina March 11 in the ACC Tournament semifinals.

After a bucket from sophomore forward Bonzie Colson, Notre Dame trailed just 23-22 at the 6:10 mark of the first half, but the Tar Heels responded with an 18-0 run to grab a 41-22 halftime lead.

The defeat marked the fourth loss for Notre Dame in its last seven games, with the others coming 63-62 at Georgia Tech, 77-56 at Florida State and 68-50 to Miami.

In essence, there’s only so much quality basketball to glean from the Irish in their last several contests. They hope to get things back on track against Michigan, given a clean slate in the NCAA Tournament.

That starts with getting the backcourt headed back in the right direction. Junior guard Steve Vasturia is just 20 of 64 (31.3 percent) shooting from the field over the last seven contests, while junior guard Demetrius Jackson is 27 of 82 (32.9 percent) over the same stretch.

The duo has also combined for 34 turnovers (4.9 per game) in the seven games since the Irish beat Louisville 71-66 Feb. 13.

“Yeah, it was definitely a tough loss for us,” Jackson said of the UNC beatdown. “Nobody likes to lose. But it was easy for us to put it past us because of how much we lost by. We kind of buried that one quick.

“But at the same time, we just tried to take away some lessons from the game, tried to work on some things that we could have done better in that game and use that going forward.”

Head coach Mike Brey agreed that in a way, the loss to the Tar Heels is less difficult to come back from than a narrow defeat.

“It may be a little easier in that it’s one of those burn the tape kind of games at this time of year,” he said. “The only thing you come back to to dwell on is how we turned the ball over in both games.

“I mean, I still don’t know how we won the Duke game with, I believe, 15 or 16 turnovers. … For most of the season, we led the league — led the nation — in least amount of turnovers, and then we hit every cheerleader in the building in the Verizon Center.

“So it gave you one point to stress, but we didn’t dwell too much on anything else.”

Michigan Notes

The Wolverines are coming off a 67-62 win over Tulsa March 16 in the NCAA Tournament’s First Four.

Neither team played well, particularly Tulsa, which appeared lethargic and almost uninterested in the game for a large portion of the first half. The Golden Hurricane fought back, though, and actually led Michigan 60-59 with 1:10 to play before the Wolverines pulled away.

The contest as a whole was largely a showcase of why both teams were questionable selections to make the tournament to begin with.

Nevertheless, Michigan has more than enough firepower to take down the Irish. They rank 18th nationally in effective field goal percentage (54.7 percent), but have struggled from deep in their last three contests, hitting just 18 of 71 (25.4 percent) of their long-range attempts.

At some point, those shots have to start falling. They certainly had plenty of open looks against Tulsa that just didn’t go down.

Will those buckets finally turn from misses into makes against the Irish? That could be the biggest key in the game.

Outlook

If the Irish and Michigan match themselves in level of play — say both teams play to their best, or have an average outing — I like Notre Dame to win.

But it’s been quite a while since we’ve seen Brey’s squad put together a real solid 40 minutes of basketball. And if Michigan’s shots suddenly start falling, as they’re bound to at some stage sooner than later, Notre Dame could be looking at an uphill battle.

In what’s essentially a toss-up game, I’ll go with the Irish.

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