Men's Basketball: Irish must get ready for Tournaments
By KATHLEEN O'BRIEN
Associate Sports Editor
Before the calendar even flipped to March, I was convinced Georgetown stood no chance of winning Sunday.
The game would be a senior sendoff for team leader Martin Ingelsby and Hans Rasmussen, and I knew how much all the Irish players wanted to give these two a final home game to smile about, not to mention picking up a 20th regular-season victory.
Nothing in the early going changed my mind.
Junior power forward Troy Murphy worked his magic, throwing his 245-pound weight around as the Irish jumped into the lead. Murphy scored eight of Notre Dame's first 12 points, including two 3-pointers, with the All-American picking up a few floorburns diving for loose balls.
Georgetown's height advantage — the Hoyas' lineup included 6-11 Lee Scruggs and 7-0 Ruben Boumtje-Boumtje, along with 6-8 leading scorer Mike Sweetney — and dominance on the boards soon turned things around. A 19-4 Georgetown scoring run to open the second half left Notre Dame trailing 56-40.
Maybe I should have been worried then, yet I still thought the Irish (19-8, 11-5 Big East) would pull it out. They didn't, falling 79-72 to the Hoyas.
"You want to push the buttons," Irish coach Mike Brey said of his pre-game motivation strategy, "but there's other buttons to be pushed."
Such as looking forward to the Big East and NCAA Tournaments.
This year's Irish may have only two more wins than they did entering last year's Big East Tournament, but they are light years away from that NIT runner-up squad.
The difference has less to do with wins, although the Irish won the Big East West Division title for the first time this season, and more to do with how the wins come.
At midseason, people were doubting the Irish big-time, and so the Irish stepped it up by winning eight in a row.
After dropping a disappointing home decision to Seton Hall, the questions were back. Notre Dame responded by one-upping Boston College on a game winning shot by Martin Ingelsby.
When the division title awaited a winning Irish team, they poured it on against Virginia Tech. They played their most unselfish basketball of the season, with Murphy and Ingelsby sharing key roles with forwards Harold Swanagan and Ryan Humphrey and shooting guards David Graves and Matt Carroll.
By the time Notre Dame picked up win No. 18 at Virginia Tech, the team knew it had accomplished its season-long goal — an NCAA Tournament bid. As conference champions, the Irish wouldn't have another sad Selection Sunday.
So while everybody wanted to pick up wins against UConn and Georgetown, they would be extra — for ratings. There was nothing crucial riding on the outcomes.
"Now you're playing for seeding," Graves said, "but we don't understand because we've never been in this position. We wanted to win those games, but we ran into two very good teams that played their best basketball all year."
Losing to Georgetown didn't kill the season. The coming week is when the wins really start to count.
"It's nice for somebody that's had the impact that Martin [Ingelsby] has on this program to go out of here winning a game," Murphy said. "It wasn't in the cards today. I think he would trade winning today for winning three next week."
Now it's tournament time, and the Irish are looking to hang two more championship banners.
The first one is this week, as Notre Dame has a first-round bye in the Big East Tournament. It will play the winner of the Miami-Pittsburgh game Thursday night in the tourney quarterfinals at Madison Square Garden.
"Now we're going to head up to New York and try to get another one of these trophies," Ingelsby said.
Then it's on to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in more than a decade.
"We're not going to be satisfied just getting in," Ingelsby said.
The Irish are having fun this year. Winning is part of that, as the older guys, who have been in South Bend long enough to experience losing seasons, know all too well.
This year, they want to make some noise in the NCAA Tournament. As Brey often says, Murphy's been driving them towards that goal all season long.
After two years covering these Irish players, I wouldn't doubt their resolve when it matters.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Sports Stories for Monday, March 5, 2001
