Down to the Wire
March 10, 2004 09:28 PM | General
March 10, 2004
NEW YORK – Collins Falls’ three-point basket with 16 seconds left lifted Notre Dame to a 65-64 victory over West Virginia in the first round of the Big East tournament Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden.
Notre Dame, needing to win this game to keep its NCAA tournament hopes alive, played like a team knowing its postseason fate is up in the air, especially in the second half.
"I'm very proud of our group. I think it's a little bit of like a symbol of how our year has gone," said Notre Dame coach Mike Brey. "We absorbed a big punch and still found a way to get out of here with a win."
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| West Virginia's Tyrone Sally fights Notre Dame's Jordan Cornette for a loose ball during Wednesday's Big East tournament game in Madison Square Garden. (AP photo) |
The Irish nearly blew a 16-point second-half lead to the Mountaineers, falling behind 62-60 with 1:42 to go on a lay up by West Virginia’s Joe Herber.
A pair of Chris Quinn free throws tied the game at 62, but the Mountaineers once again took the lead on a tough shot in the paint by Tyrone Sally.
The forward was fouled on the play and could have made it more difficult for the Irish by completing the three-point play and putting West Virginia up by four.
But he missed and Falls answered with a big three to give Notre Dame a one-point lead with 16 seconds left.
"I was saying, 'I wish I'd played man as it went up,'" said West Virginia coach John Beilein. "I mean it looked good all the time. It's basically a thing you've got to live with. Chris Thomas could have done his thing off a ball screen or something, he's just so good."
West Virginia called a 30-second timeout to set up a play at half court with 11 seconds remaining. With time to set its defense, Notre Dame was able to force Herber to take a difficult three-point attempt at the buzzer that just grazed the rim.
"We were trying to get either a drive for J.D. (Collins) or something on the wing but they blew it up on the left side by denying," said Beilein. "Then when we came back to the right side Joe thought there was a little bit more time on the clock.
"We tried to clear what we call an 'alley' for Joe but it never got cleared," he added.
Notre Dame began to take control of the game midway through the first half, going on a 21-10 run to take a 10-point lead at 28-18.
Most of Notre Dame’s points came from guard Chris Thomas, who hit tough shot after tough shot. Thomas finished the first half with 12 points as the Irish built a 35-24 halftime lead.
The Mountaineers (15-13) came out hot at the start of the second half, scoring four straight points off a pair of Sally free throws and a lay up by Herber. Tom Timmermans stopped WVU's mini run with a jumper to make it 37-28, Notre Dame.
Back to back threes by Sally and J.D. Collins cut Notre Dame’s lead to three before the Irish went on another 13-3 spurt to take its biggest lead of the game, 53-37. Three-point baskets by Timmermans, Thomas and Torian Jones preceded eight straight points by Thomas and Quinn.
A Thomas jumper with 13:42 left put Notre Dame up 10, 47-37, and a tough three from the corner gave Thomas his 19th point and Notre Dame a 13-point advantage. Falls completed the run with a three from the elbow with 12:29 remaining.
West Virginia then began chipping away at Notre Dame’s lead. Pittsnogle hit back-to-back shots to cut Notre Dame’s lead to 12, and the Mountaineers got their deficit inside double digits on a Pittsnogle lay up with 7:30 remaining.
Trailing 58-50, Herber worked smaller Chris Quinn down low for a lay up to cut Notre Dame’s lead to six, and later Patrick Beilein hit back–to-back three-point baskets from NBA range to tie the game at 60 with 2:37 remaining.
"West Virginia just played fearlessly down the stretch," said Brey.
Both teams shot the ball well from behind the arc. Notre Dame canned 10 of 18 three-point attempts for 55.6 percent while West Virginia finished 7 of 16 for 43.8 percent.
Thomas, who played a good portion of the second half with four fouls, made 8 of 12 field goal attempts and finished with a game-high 19 points, although he was held scoreless for the remaining 13:08.
Guard Chris Quinn was the only other Irish player to reach double figures with 12 points.
"West Virginia's zone, to play against that for 35 minutes is different," admitted Brey. "No one in the league plays that kind of zone. As much as you practice, prepare for it, get mentally ready, eventually it gets you back on your heels, and we did get back on our heels a little bit."
Herber led West Virginia with 17 on 7 of 10 shooting. Pittsnogle contributed 13 points and 7 rebounds, while Beilein added 11 and Collins scored a career-high 10.
D’or Fischer, coming off back-to-back 19-point efforts against Syracuse and Miami, was held to just 4 points on 2 of 7 shooting in 25 minutes of action.
"I can't tell you whether he was (nervous) or not; you'll have to ask him," said Beilein. "He's made such great strides that I think there's a lot of great, great basketball left in D'or Fischer. I'm sure he would have liked to have played more and played better. He will in the future."
Overall, West Virginia made 24 of 52 field goal attempts for 46.2 percent. Notre Dame was a little better hitting 23 of 45 shots for 51.1 percent. Notre Dame held a 30-24 rebounding edge.
Notre Dame has now won 10 straight over West Virginia dating back to 1996 and Irish coach Mike Brey is a perfect 8-0 against the Mountaineers. WVU has also dropped seven straight Big East tournament opening-round games; West Virginia’s lone Big East tournament win came in 1997 against Seton Hall. Losses to Seton Hall in 1996, to Georgetown in 2000, and to Notre Dame this year went down to the wire.
The Irish advance to the quarterfinal round to play No. 2-seeded Connecticut tomorrow night at 7 pm.
West Virginia is hoping for an invitation to play in the NIT; the Mountaineers last played in the NIT in 2001 when Gale Catlett’s team was knocked out of the tournament by Richmond and coach John Beilein.
"Hopefully, someone from the NIT committee was here today, and sees that we've had some tough losses, and some of those losses were during a transiton period," said Beilein.
