Notre Dame Preview
March 11, 2009 11:27 AM | General
March 11, 2009
TOURNAMENT NOTES | 
GAME PREVIEW
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The Big East Tournament begins today for the West Virginia Mountaineers. WVU will face Notre Dame at 7 pm tonight in a game that will be televised nationally on ESPN.
Notre Dame (18-13) defeated Rutgers, 61-50, on Tuesday night to advance. Tory Jackson led the Irish with 12 points in the 11-point victory. All-Big East forward Luke Harangody made just 3 of 17 field-goal attempts against the Scarlet Knights and finished the game with 7 points. Harangody did pull down 11 rebounds.
Neither team shot well: Notre Dame was 20 of 57 for 35.1 percent while Rutgers was 21 of 63 for 33.3 percent. Notre Dame was 8 of 18 from 3-point distance, which proved to be the difference in the game.
West Virginia and Notre Dame met in Morgantown on Feb. 18 with the Mountaineers pulling out a 79-68 victory after trailing by double digits in the first half. West Virginia took control of the game when Coach Bob Huggins switched from a man-to-man defense to a 1-3-1 zone. Notre Dame made just 8 of 24 field goal attempts in the second half after trailing by only two at the break.
Harangody led all scorers with 26 points on 10-of-20 shooting. He also grabbed 13 rebounds.
Alex Ruoff scored 24 points and handed out four assists to lead four West Virginia double-figure scorers. Da’Sean Butler contributed 19, Kevin Jones came off the bench to score 12 and Devin Ebanks added 11 points to go with nine rebounds.
West Virginia (21-10) last played on Saturday, losing 62-59 to conference regular-season champion Louisville. The Mountaineers had opportunities to win that game, but a key stretch with four minutes to go when the Mountaineers committed back-to-back turnovers helped the Cardinals pull out the victory. Five of West Virginia’s eight Big East losses during the regular season came to the top three teams in the conference – Louisville, Pitt and Connecticut.
Against Louisville, Jones and Ebanks were West Virginia’s top two scorers with 19 and 16 points respectively. Meanwhile, Butler and Ruoff were a combined 4 of 21 shooting for 10 points. Ruoff, playing most of the game in foul trouble, failed to score. Both players are going to have to perform better in New York if West Virginia hopes to advance to the quarterfinals on Thursday.
Regardless of tonight’s outcome, West Virginia appears to be in good shape for an NCAA Tournament bid with an RPI of 26 as of March 10. Notre Dame, with an RPI of 73, probably must win the Big East Tournament to make the NCAA Tournament.
Last year, first-year coach Bob Huggins led West Virginia to the Big East Tournament semifinals with victories over Providence and Connecticut.
MSN’s pregame coverage begins with the Coliseum Countdown at 6:30 pm. MSN radio coverage can be accessed on the Internet through MountaineerTV.
