A firm believer in the law of averages, Mike Brey figured the Irish were long overdue to break out of their seven-game shooting slump. With the way the Irish had practicing recently, the Notre Dame head coach figured the Irish would shoot well against No. 21 Pittsburgh.

But even Brey didn't expect the Irish to make 68 percent of their shots against the Big East's stingiest defense.

In a tightly officiated game, the Irish jumped out to a huge first-half lead and never looked back as they rolled over the Panthers 89-76.

"That had to be our best half of the year," he said. "We were due."

The Notre Dame first-half domination was so complete that Pittsburgh, a team that only allowed a Big East-low average of 57 points per game before Wednesday, had given up 49 points by halftime.

Pittsburgh led 4-3 early in the first half before the Irish offense exploded with a 17-0 run that spanned six minutes. Notre Dame added a 14-3 spurt towards the end of the first half, putting the Irish up 41-16. By the time Chris Thomas hit a buzzer-beater to end the first half, the Irish led by 28.

"It's just one of those games," Matt Carroll said. "Things were clicking. We haven't had too many games where all five guys were shooting the ball pretty well and moving the ball on offense."

All eight Irish players who entered the game scored, and four Notre Dame players finished in double digits scoring. Thomas and David Graves led the Irish with 19 points. Ryan Humphrey chipped in 17 and Carroll had 15.

"Anytime a team shoots 67 percent, it's going to be tough to beat them," Pittsburgh guard Brandin Knight said. "We dug ourselves a hole early and didn't make it up."

While the Irish easily dominated the first half, Pittsburgh managed to scored 55 points in the second half, although they would never draw closer than 13 points. Knight scored 20 points — with 17 coming in the second half — to lead the Panther charge.

"I don't have a halftime speech when you're up 28," Brey said. "I almost expected the second half to be like that.'

However, the second half rally was overshadowed by tight officiating that slowed the second half and made the game stretch longer than two hours. While both teams said they expected a physical second half, they had no idea how many fouls the officials would call. Officials called a combined 34 second-half personal fouls — 15 on the Panthers and 19 on the Irish — and three technical fouls. By the time the game was over, seven players would have three or more personal fouls and Humphrey, Carroll and Pittsburgh's Orlando Lett would foul out.

"I think [the officials] found out at halftime their plane had been cancelled, and they didn't have anywhere to go," Graves joked.

But he added in a more serious tone, "You look at one point, we're 10 to one in fouls, on your home court. It was an aggressive game, but you could tell early in the second half that they were going to [call a lot of fouls]."

Emotions boiled over midway through the second half. With 9:30 left in the game, Humphrey grabbed a rebound and was fouled by Lett. As Humphrey clutched the ball and walked away from the basket, Lett grabbed onto the Irish forward until Humphrey pushed Lett to the floor.

Immediately, Carroll and Harold Swanagan got into a shoving match with several Pittsburgh players. Brey ran across the court from the Notre Dame bench to pull his players away from the situation as several Pittsburgh players sitting on the bench entered the fray.

Play stopped for nearly five minutes while the three officials conferred at midcourt. As boos rained down from the stands and coaches screamed for explanations, Humphrey and Lett were both charged technical fouls.

"I don't know what happened," Humphrey said. "I got the rebound, I got surrounded, I got pushed and bumped. The next thing I know, I've got four fouls."

That wasn't the only situation where the two teams clashed in the second half. Tom Timmermans was assessed a flagrant foul when he fouled Donatas Zavackas with 13:00 to go in the game. And when Jordan Cornette got into an argument with Knight and Pittsburgh's Chad Johnson, officials quickly slapped Johnson with a technical foul.

But both coaches called timeouts to settle their teams down throughout the second half, and the game ended without any other major altercations.

"That `s our league," Brey said. "People physically come after everybody, and they like coming after us É We kept our poise pretty good, but we're not backing down."

Note:

With the win, the Irish have swept the season series against the Panthers and earn the tiebreaker against them in the Big East West Division.

Notre Dame's next game is Sunday at Seton Hall, the same team they beat at the Joyce Center last Saturday.

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