Irish look to get back on track against struggling Louisville

By MATTHEW CROW

a ssociate sports editor

o n Tuesday night, notre d ame men’s basketball suffered a narrow road loss against an nc s tate team that will likely be playing in the ncaa Tournament. The i rish will seek to get a better result s aturday, when they return to Purcell Pavilion to host conference foe Louisville. d isappointing results notwithstanding, there have been several positive trends as of late that could provide a boost against Louisville. The first is the return to form of graduate student guard c ormac r yan. a fter a brief midseason slump, r yan has regained his shooting stroke and has been on a tear as of late. a fter making just eight total three-pointers during a seven-game stretch that spanned most of January, he has connected on eight in the last two games alone. he has shot at a 62% clip from deep in those contests. a lso promising for the i rish has been the play of their freshman duo, guard J.J. s tarling and forward vena llen Lubin. b oth had arguably the best game of their young notre d ame careers against nc s tate. s tarling has appeared to get more and more comfortable all season and has scored in double figures five times in the last seven games. o n Tuesday, he scored 18 points, notably doing much of his work in transition. This was a welcome change for the i rish, who rank near the bottom of the country in fastbreak points. r olston is coming off a twopoint weekend. Junior forward Landon s laggert also has two helpers in his last four games, and while this season has been a struggle, it is worth noting s laggert is scoring on just 4.3% of his shots. That is well below his 12.9% and 15.7% rates from the last two seasons. s ome much-needed regression to the mean could be the boost the i rish need. h owever, that will not matter if n otre d ame cannot tighten things up in their own zone. The i rish yielded a jaw-dropping 98 shots in their series last weekend at Penn s tate. For reference, Lindenwood is last in the entire country in shots against per game at 41.8. n otre d ame is not too far behind (or ahead, depending on your perspective), surrendering the fourth most at 35.1. b ischel has been great, but the i rish cannot depend on him for everything. e xpect him to be back in the crease this weekend. The series starts at c ompton Family i ce a rena on Friday at 7:30 p.m. i t wraps up at 6 p.m. on s aturday. b oth games are available to stream on Peacock.

The i rish and c ardinals have both struggled through much of the season. notre d ame enters the game looking to shake off a four-game losing streak that has dropped them to 9-12 (1-9 in the acc ). Louisville, meanwhile, has perhaps disappointed more than any other team in the nation. The c ardinals are just 2-18, the worst record of any major conference team, and are winless in acc play. notre d ame will look to ensure they stay that way and gain some momentum before heading into a string of very winnable games against Wake Forest, Georgia Tech and v irginia Tech.

For the i rish, it is difficult to attribute their current slump to anything other than late-game execution.

The outcome of eight of their ten acc games has been in question into the final minutes, save for double-digit losses to m iami and north c arolina. notre d ame has been in nearly every game it has played. b ut the i rish just have not found the right buttons to press in order to win tight games, a shock for a team with so much veteran talent.

Tuesday’s loss encapsulated how much of the acc slate has gone for notre d ame. The i rish played a talented team in a hostile environment, yet were in control for much of the game. When it came down to crunch time, though, they could not get the job done. e ach of their four losses since defeating Georgia Tech has told a similar story.

When r yan gets hot, he becomes nearly unstoppable from beyond the arc. The i rish are a different team when he is shooting the ball well. i n their best performance of the season to date, an 18-point win against thenno. 20 m ichigan s tate, r yan made a season-high six threes and scored 23 points.

Contact Andrew McGuinness at amcgiunn@nd.edu