#5 Notre Dame picked up wins over Boston College and Florida State this week to clinch their fourth consecutive ACC title. They have put themselves in a good position moving into the postseason.
Thursday: #5 Notre Dame vs. Boston College
On Thursday night, the Irish celebrated Senior Night with a home game against Boston College. Senior Lindsay Allen made her 141st consecutive start, and senior Diamond Thompson also got the start for the occasion. The Irish rested junior Kathryn Westbeld to allow her ankle to continue to heal, and Mychal Johnson was still out with her ankle injury. It looked like the Irish were going to display some traditional senior night struggles as BC jumped out to an early lead at 7-2, but the Irish went on an 8-0 run of their own and never looked back. They continued to extend their lead and the Irish led 26-14 to end the first quarter. ND continued to pull away in the second quarter. BC went on a little run with about four minutes remaining, but couldn’t make a dent in the deficit. ND went into halftime with a 51-31 lead. Making the most of senior night, Allen had seven assists, ten points, and four rebounds in the first half alone.
The third quarter got off to a bit of an ugly start. Turnovers were part of the problem in a long scoring drought. Notre Dame did not score until the 5:47 mark of the third to make the score 53-35. Fortunately, BC wasn’t scoring much during that stretch either. After this sloppy start, ND found their footing and started extending the lead again. The third quarter ended with ND up 66-38. Stretching from the third quarter into the fourth quarter, the Irish went on a 22-0 run. The defense held the Eagles to a dismal 9.4% shooting in the second half. The Irish won this one comfortably with a final score of 82-45. Both seniors performed well on the night they were being recognized. Diamond Thompson played 16 minutes, well above her average, and used the time to pick up six rebounds and one block. Allen led the team with 18 points and eight assists. Their younger teammates did their part too. Freshman Erin Boley scored 14 points, and Brianna Turner added 12 points and tied her career-high with seven blocks.
Sunday: #5 Notre Dame vs. #8 Florida State
On Sunday the Irish hosted Florida State, with the top seed in the ACC Tournament on the line. FSU was playing for a share of the regular season conference title, and ND was playing to win it outright. With Kathryn Westbeld back in the starting lineup, the Irish got off to a good start. The team played strong defense, with Turner blocking three shots just in the first quarter (including a couple of highlight reel plays). With the offense clicking well also, ND took the lead early and led 25-15 at the end of the first quarter. They picked up right where they left off to open the second quarter, opening with back-to-back passes inside to Turner for easy layups, leading to a quick FSU timeout. The Irish offense was getting everything they wanted early in the second quarter and were able to extend their lead while FSU struggled. The Seminoles did settle in and start to play better as the quarter went on, but ND held a 43-30 lead at halftime.
The Irish came out strong defensively again in the third quarter, going on a 6-0 run to stretch the lead to 19 before Florida State started to settle in again. The Seminoles did start chipping into the ND lead late in the third, and during the third and fourth quarters FSU went on a 10-0 run of their own to cut the Irish lead to nine at 59-50. Jackie Young answered with a three. Allen picked up her fourth foul with more than six minutes remaining in the game, so she had to go to the bench for a brief stretch. Florida State cut the lead to nine for a second time, but Westbeld answered with a three that kicked off an 8-0 Irish run to put the game away. The final score was 79-61. With less than two minutes remaining in the game, Allen passed the ball inside to Turner for her ninth assist of the game. This assist tied her with Mary Gavin for the Notre Dame career assists record at 778, and also gave her 210 this season. She is just seven assists shy of tying the ACC career record as well. Allen’s nine assists were just a portion of the unselfish play in this game, as the Irish tallied 24 assists on 31 made baskets. Turner led the team with 24 points and five blocks. Arike Ogunbowale added 19 points and Westbeld added 14. The team clinched the top seed for the upcoming ACC Tournament. This is their fourth consecutive outright ACC regular season title, and their sixth conference title in a row going back to their last two seasons in the Big East.
Observations
After the two close finishes last week, I was so grateful to the team for the two fairly comfortable wins this week. Much less stressful to watch (and I’m sure, to play). The team looked really good against Boston College, which they should. The Eagles are sitting at the bottom of the ACC. But, the Irish also looked great against Florida State. They looked a little more like past Notre Dame teams, and like we thought they would at the beginning of this year.
The defense looked quite a bit better this week than it did last week, so hopefully they can carry that forward into the postseason. The offense also looks much cleaner, with some really nice passing and unselfish play. The Florida State game was just fun to watch.
We’ve seen a couple of different versions of this team this year, and I hope this week’s is the one that shows up for the ACC Tournament and the NCAA Tournament. I’m cautiously optimistic that their best basketball is still ahead of them.
Other News
On Monday, Marina Mabrey was named the ACC Player of the Week. It was well-deserved, coming after a week in which she scored 29 points at Clemson and 22 points at Syracuse, hitting clutch shots to keep the team in both close games. Hopefully we’ll see more performances like these from Mabrey in the postseason.
During her radio show on Monday, Muffet McGraw confirmed that Kristina Nelson will return to the team for her fifth year, pending approval of the Faculty Board on Athletics. Nelson sat out with a shoulder injury two years ago, so has a remaining year of eligibility. She has shown good improvement this year, and adds needed depth for the Irish behind Turner.
Burger Basket Leaderboard
Unfortunately, the team didn’t hit 88 in either game this week, so these are the final regular-season numbers. However, the Irish will host games in the NCAA Tournament, so the winner(s) could still change.
Erin Boley – 2
Jackie Young – 2
Marina Mabrey – 1
Arike Ogunbowale – 1
Coming Up
The ACC Tournament begins on Wednesday. The top seeded Irish have a double-bye, and will play their first game on Friday afternoon against the winner of the 8/9 matchup between Virginia and Wake Forest. The most recent release of the NCAA Tournament top 16 seeds had the Irish as a #1 seed (#4 overall), but that position will depend on how the conference tournament goes.
Another great season (how spoiled are we that 3 losses feels like a rough year?) and the dominance of the ACC continues. I was encouraged by the easy way the ladies handled Florida State–that’s the sort of play that can win the ACC tourney and get back to the Final Four.