Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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MEN'S BASKETBALL BY JORDAN WELLS A mixture of both peaks and val- leys highlighted Notre Dame's first 12 games in ACC play. Through that roller-coaster ride, the Irish emerged at 8-4 two-thirds of the way through the ACC season and were 17-7 overall. Here's a look at the highlights and what has worked for the Irish, in addition to the lowlights and what needs to improve. BLUE-BLOOD KILLERS Nobody's been a bigger headache for Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski and North Carolina head coach Roy Wil- liams than Mike Brey and the Fighting Irish. In what would turn out to be a pair of electric wins, Notre Dame took down the Blue Devils 95-91 Jan. 16 at Cameron Indoor Stadium and the Tar Heels 80-76 Feb. 6 in Purcell Pavilion. Those two victories improved Notre Dame to 6-1 in its last seven games combined against Duke and UNC, including defeating both en route to the 2015 ACC Tourna- ment championship. The Irish have won three of the last four against Duke (not even including January 2014 that would make it 4-1) and three straight versus the Tar Heels. Brey's squad pulled out both upsets — if you want to even use that word at this stage — in different fashions. Notre Dame's offense performed at a high level in all facets at Duke, shooting well from both the field (36 of 72, 50.0 percent) and the free throw stripe (16 of 20, 80.0 percent), grabbing 16 offen- sive rebounds despite making a good percentage of its shots, and committing only six turnovers. Against then No. 2-ranked North Car- olina, Notre Dame found itself down as much as 15 points late in the first half after a massive struggle offensively against a huge Tar Heels frontcourt. The Irish reinvented themselves at halftime and came out what they described as "tougher" in the second half. RISING to the OCCASION The Irish have 'flat out delivered' against marquee opponents