Irish defeat Hoyas in quadruple overtime
By ANDREW SOUKUP
Associate Sports Editor
During one of the four overtime periods in Saturday's Notre Dame-Georgetown marathon game, Irish coach Mike Brey called his players around him and asked them a question.
"I've got nothing to do this afternoon, what about you guys?" he said during a break in action. "Let's just stay 'til we win it."
Notre Dame ended up sticking around awhile as the Irish beat the Hoyas 116-111 in the first quadruple-overtime game in Notre Dame basketball history.
The two teams combined to score the most points in a Big East basketball game and were just two points behind tying the Division I record for points in a game set 12 years ago. It was also the longest game in Big East history.
Chris Thomas set a school record for minutes played by staying in the game for all 60 minutes. The freshman point guard, who is now averaging 41.1 minutes per Big East game, finished with 22 points, 12 assists and eight rebounds. He committed just five turnovers, only one of which came in the final 40 minutes.
"Who wouldn't want to be in a game like that?" Thomas said. "I felt if I took a break or asked for a breather, I'd be missing a beat. Coach asked me once in the first half if I needed a break, and he never asked me after that."
Matt Carroll's 30 points set a new career high for the junior point guard. But his biggest shot of the night was a 3-pointer he made with 1:16 left in the final overtime period. The basket put the Irish up by four. The Hoyas would never draw closer than two the rest of the game.
"Matty stepped up and kinda jolted us ahead," said David Graves, who finished with 15 points. "It was going to take a big shot like he had to win the game."
Notre Dame also tied a Big East record for most rebounds in a game with 64, 10 more than the Hoyas grabbed. It was a strong change from the teams' first meeting, when Georgetown out-muscled and out-played the Irish around the basket.
"It was a heck of a day," said Brey, who was an assistant at Duke during the legendary 1992 Duke-Kentucky regional final. "I've been in coaching for a long time, and I've never been in one of those."
The Irish, who led by as many as 12 points in the first half, battled the Hoyas through three overtime periods before finally gaining control in the fourth overtime.
Jordan Cornette scored the first three points of the final overtime for the Irish. His only field goal of the night came off a pass from Ryan Humphrey that put the Irish up 105-103. But the Hoyas responded with five quick points to take a three-point advantage, their largest lead of the afternoon.
But with 2:20 left in the game, Ryan Humphrey, who played the final 35 minutes with four fouls and yet avoided fouling out, drove to the basket and drew a crucial fifth foul on Georgetown's Mike Sweetney. The Georgetown power dominated the inside all afternoon and finished with 35 points and 20 rebounds, but his absence left the Hoyas without an inside presence.
"That was huge," Brey said. "We had a hard time guarding him, and it opened it up more for our other guys."
Humphrey, who finished with 23 points and 14 rebounds, made both of his free throws and Thomas made a 10-foot jump shot to put the Irish up 109-108 and give them the lead for good.
"I guess it was just meant to be," Carroll said. "We said, `We don't know what it's going to take, but we're going to do whatever it takes to win this game.'"
Hoya point guard Kevin Braswell had a dubious role in making sure the game reached quadruple-overtime. Braswell, who usually takes the final shot for the Hoyas when the game is on the line, missed three chances to win the at the end of regulation and again at the end of the first two overtimes.
With the scored tied at 84 and 5.2 seconds remaining in regulation, Georgetown in-bounded the ball to Braswell, who drove the length of the floor and threw up a shot that was partially blocked by Tom Timmermans. At the end of the first five-minute period, he missed a shot with the score tied at 88, and his 3-pointer at the buzzer in the second overtime ricocheted off the back of the rim.
The closest scare for the Irish came at the end of the third overtime. Georgetown's Gerald Riley fired a 15-foot jumper that Humphrey blocked. The ball went straight to Braswell, who fired a 3-pointer that swished through the net as the game clock expired, sending Georgetown fans into a frenzy.
But the basket was waved off because the shot clock had expired, and both teams entered the fourth overtime tied at 102.
"They were getting a lot of shots to win it, but we took away their opportunities," Graves said. "I don't know what it was — maybe fate or divine intervention."
The game got so wild that at one point Brey tried to insert Timmermans into the game, only to have his assistant coaches tell him the sophomore forward had fouled out the overtime period before.
In all, 54 personal fouls were called and both teams shot a combined 72 free throws. By the end of the game, four Georgetown starters — Sweetney, Braswell, Riley and Wesley Wilson — had fouled out, leaving the Hoyas with an inexperienced lineup in the final two minutes, while the Irish had only lost Harold Swanagan and Timmermans
"We knew we were going to leave the place with a smile on our face," Thomas said. "We would have gone through six overtimes as long as we would have come out on top. That's all that mattered to us."
All Sports Stories for Monday, February 11, 2002
