After dropping its Atlantic Coast Conference season opener Saturday, Notre Dame will return to nonconference play for a home matchup Tuesday against Western Michigan in South Bend, Ind.
Notre Dame was held to woeful 28.6 percent shooting from the field and 18.8 percent from 3-point range against a relentless Miami defense in a 62-49 defeat to the then-No. 8 Hurricanes. The wayward shooting negated a 39-37 rebounding advantage.
Now with consecutive defeats, having also fallen to South Carolina last Tuesday in the ACC/SEC Challenge, Notre Dame (3-4) is back on its home court, where it has gone 2-1.
Despite Saturday’s defeat, the Fighting Irish displayed their own solid defense, holding Miami well under its average of 82.9 points per game.
“Nobody’s going to be perfect, right? So, we have to build off the things that we did right and then correct the things that we didn’t do right,” Notre Dame head coach Micah Shrewsberry said. “Shorten those mistakes. There’s going to be mistakes in every game, but we can’t let one turn to two. Two turns into three.”
J.R. Konieczny led the Irish in scoring Saturday with 14 points, while Tae Davis added 12 points with 10 rebounds. Markus Burton leads Notre Dame in scoring on the season with 14.9 points per game, but was held to six points on 3-of-11 shooting against Miami.
Western Michigan (2-5) enters off a 66-51 defeat at home to St. Thomas on Friday. The Broncos shot 39.1 percent from the field and made just 2 of 16 attempts from 3-point range (12.5 percent).
Anthony Crump scored 12 points for the Broncos on 5-of-7 shooting Friday, while Jefferson De La Cruz Monegro added 10 points thanks to eight made free throws in eight tries. Western Michigan committed 17 turnovers, which St. Thomas turned into 17 points.
The Broncos were blitzed early, taking a 41-14 deficit into halftime.
Though up against the challenge of facing Notre Dame on the road, the Broncos already had a taste of hostile environments when losing road games to Big Ten teams Northwestern and Ohio State.
“You have to fight for your culture every day,” Western Michigan coach Dwayne Stephens told the Western Herald student newspaper before the season.
“You have to have some patience to be able to push and demand and also love on your team at the same time.”
–Field Level Media