When the Notre Dame men’s basketball team looks back on this season, it can proud of it played No. 6 Houston. While it resulted in a 65-54 defeat during the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas, it was a testament to how the Irish could respond to adversity.
Markus Burton was ruled out indefinitely with a knee injury earlier in the day. But that didn’t mean the Irish (4-3) just folded against the Cougars (4-2). In fact, their biggest deficit didn’t come until the very end of the game, which shows they were in it almost the entire time.
The problem for the Irish was that they shot 38.8% from the floor, making only 19 field goals. Over eight minutes elapsed between field goals at one point in the second half. It also didn’t help that the Cougars used their suffocating defense to score 11 points off 12 Irish turnovers.
Emanuel Sharp led the Cougars with 17 points. Milos Uzan scored 10 points and finished within an assist of a double-double.
Terrance Arceneaux had 13 points off the bench on 6-of-7 shooting. That alone was a far better showing than the entire Irish bench, which collectively was shut out in this game while missing all three field-goal attempts.
Tae Davis led all scorers with 22 points and tied for the game high with eight rebounds. Although Braeden Shrewsberry scored 16 points, he shot 4 of 13 from 3-point range, perhaps an indicator that he’s trying to make up for Burton’s absence.
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This article originally appeared on Fighting Irish Wire: Notre Dame men’s basketball doomed by poor shooting in loss to Houston
