MEN'S BASKETBALL: Notre Dame adjusts for NCAA tournament appearance
By KATHLEEN O'BRIEN
Associate Sports Editor
KANSAS CITY, Mo.
Shaking up the starting lineup following mid-January losses to Kentucky and Seton Hall geared Notre Dame up for an eight-game winning streak. But after the Irish endured their only three-game slide of the season, head coach Mike Brey figured reinserting David Graves into the starting five might get the Irish going again.
It did, and just in time for Notre Dame's first NCAA Tournament appearance in 11 years.
"We made an adjustment in the lineup," Brey said, "and that certainly helped us."
Graves grooved to 13 first-half points and the Irish (20-9 heading into Sunday's game) jigged to an 83-71 win over Xavier (21-8) in the opening round of the Big Dance Friday.
Graves, a junior, and sophomore guard Matt Carroll possessed the Midas touch, as putting the ball in their hands was like finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The backcourt pair put 16 of 18 shots through the hoop for 41 points, Carroll leading the way with 21.
"I was shooting the ball well all week," Graves said. "The easier shots you take, the higher percentages you have."
The Musketeers have felt the dagger of Graves' long-range shot before. A year ago, he sliced Xavier's hopes of an NIT title with 21 first-half points. But Xavier hadn't really been bitten by Carroll, who scored 13 in last season's showdown.
Both years, the Irish ended the Musketeers' season in 2000 with a dozen-point margin of victory, in 2000 in the second round of the NIT, in 2001 in the first game of the NCAAs.
The Irish entered the tourney after an early exit in the Big East Tournament and two regular-season losses, leading many pundits to predict a short trip to March Madness. The "experts" picked 11th-seeded Xavier to upset Notre Dame, seeded sixth in the Midwest Region, but the Irish were having none of the quick trip home they experienced by losing to Pittsburgh in the Big East Tournament.
"After we lost in the Big East Tournament," said senior point guard Martin Ingelsby, "we knew it was one-and-done."
Instead of being done after one game Ingelsby helped his teammates score by dishing off nine assists. They did it with the kind of balance Brey had envisioned at the season's start when he displayed the even scoring distribution of Notre Dame's 1978 Final Four team, the only one in school history.
Junior forwards Troy Murphy, an All-American, and Ryan Humphrey, a Big East third team selection, did their part. They combined to add 34 points to the Irish scoreboard along with 14 rebounds, although Murphy was just 6-for-17 from the field.
"Murphy's a disadvantage to just about anybody in the country because you have to pay so much attention to him," said Xavier coach Skip Prosser. "Sometimes you've got to pick your poison."
The balanced box score and razor-sharp 63 percent shooting gave the Irish an NCAA Tournament victory for the first time since 1989.
Xavier opened the game with a six-point lead before Notre Dame got its juices flowing. The Irish put together a 22-3 run, keyed by Carroll driving deep twice for a lay-up and finger roll, Graves knocking down a 3-pointer and two lay-ups and Murphy hitting a fall-away jumper and throwing down a slam dunk for an exclamation point.
"The spurt in the first half," Prosser said, "we had 12 points for a long time."
The Musketeers never recovered.
The closest they came to catching the Irish was a seven-point deficit late in the first half following two 3-pointers by Kevin Frey, his only points of the game.
But after Ingelsby and David West, the Atlantic 10 Player of the Year, traded baskets, it was all Irish. Carroll's trey from the left baseline rolled through the rim and a steal by Graves turned into a Harold Swanagan lay-in.
Carroll capped off the first period by dribbling around defenders for an inside-the-arc jumper at the buzzer to give Notre Dame a 40-26 lead.
After stifling the Musketeers' offense in the first half, all the Irish needed to do to win was hold on. That was a cinch, with the Irish shooting 70 percent in the second stanza.
"We took care of the ball pretty well today," Carroll said. "Shooting the ball pretty well kind of helps out on offense, too."
Defensively, Notre Dame kept both Frey and senior point guard Maurice McAfee in single digits. The sophomore West led his squad with 19.
Humphrey made the Musketeers pay down the stretch with three jams in the final two minutes to complement Murphy's pair of dunks on the day. Murphy fed Humphrey two of the dunks and Carroll dished him a pass which Humphrey finished off by slamming the reverse dunk through the hoop two-handed behind his head.
The Irish gladly took the dunks as well as the two-day extension to their season.
All Sports Stories for Tuesday, March 20, 2001
