Irish answer wake up call
By BRIAN KESSLER
Sports Editor
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Prior to Saturday's Big East showdown with Georgetown, first-year head coach Matt Doherty presented his players with a challenge.
"Skip Meyer [the trainer] and I were talking before the game and he told me that Notre Dame had never come out and played well against Georgetown," Doherty said following the Irish's 77-54 trouncing of the Hoyas. "I challenged them before the game to come out and be the aggressor and set the tone."
The Irish did just that.
Freshman Matt Carroll scored 13 of Notre Dame's first 20 points and the Irish jumped out to a 25-6 lead in the opening 10 minutes of Saturday's game at the MCI Center in Washington, D.C.
"I felt like I got into a rhythm and had some open looks," said Carroll who finished with 16 points and three assists in 21 minutes. "That was the game right there."
"He hit some open jumpers," Doherty said of Carroll. "He's a shooter and when he's open I want him to shoot it. He's dangerous. If you leave him open, I feel every time he shoots, it's going in."
Carroll, who made 4-of-5 three pointers, wasn't the only who saw his shots go down. The rest of the Irish also got in on the action.
"The shots went down," said Doherty, who watched his team jump out to a 27-point lead with 2 minutes, 10 seconds left to play in the first half. "We took a lot of good shots and we made them."
The Hoyas were unable to get any closer than 17 points in the second half and Notre Dame cruised to its largest margin of victory in a conference game since the 1996-97 season.
"We got thoroughly outplayed in every phase of the game — defense, rebounding, shooting," Georgetown head coach Craig Esherick said. "Our offense stunk up the place and Notre Dame had a lot to do with that. We got our butts kicked today."
The Irish did an excellent job crashing the boards, as they outrebounded the Hoyas, 51-29.
"We were trying to work on that in practice and we made sure we did a good job of doing that," sophomore power forward Troy Murphy said. "Coach really stressed that a lot in the pre-game talk. He said that was going to be a big part of the game and we did that well."
All seven Notre Dame players who scored shot over 50 percent from the field. Murphy, the conference's leading scorer and rebounder, led the way with 23 points and 15 rebounds.
Sophomore David Graves also had one of his biggest games of the season, pouring in 14 points and grabbing 13 boards.
Senior point guard Jimmy Dillon dished out nine assists, while Martin Ingelsby and Jere Macura came off the bench to score seven points apiece.
The Hoyas shooting woes were apparent early on. Kevin Braswell and Lee Scruggs, two of Georgetown's leading scorers, were both 2-for-11 from the field and combined for just 11 points. The Hoyas shot just 30 percent for the game and only knocked down 5-of-26 shots (19 percent) from behind the arc. They also struggled from the foul line, making just 9 of their 17 attempts.
Demetrius Hunter had a team-high 14 points, while Ruben Boumtje Boumtje grabbed 11 rebounds.
With the win, the Irish close out the regular season with a 17-13 record and an 8-8 mark in the conference. Notre Dame locked up the No. 7 seed in the Big East Tournament — its highest seed ever — and will play No. 10 seed Rugers on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at Madison Square Garden.
All Sports Stories for Monday, March 6, 2000
