True Gipper : University of Notre Dame Sports Blog : Conner & Eamon O'Keefe : True Gipper

The Fighting Irish lost last night to the West Virginia Mountaineers 79-68. After fallin to the Mountaineers the Irish have to go 4-1 the rest of the regular season and do atleast some work in th Big East Tournament to have a shot at the big dance.

The Irish failed to do the little things last night like box out/rebound, free-throw shooting, not closing out/pressuring shooters, and they put the Mountaineers in the bonus early in the 2nd half. The Irish were out rebounded 40-28 and let the Mountaineers grab 15 offensive boards. If we could have just gotten about 12 of those offenive boards that WVU got from us, thats 12 more possesions for us. If we score on a third of those possesions (6 points), that would have prevented WVU from second chance points and that would have been a win for ND. We shot 10-20 from the free throw line, unacceptable. Alex Ruoff made four three pointers and finished with 24 points, much of that because of not closing out on shooters and not even putting a hand up.

I dont think the Irish will be making the tourney after the loss last night unless they go 4-1 with only loss to Uconn. After doing that i believe the Irish have to win at least one maybe two games in the Big East tourney. The next game is against Providence this saturday.

Oh i just wanted to put this in here. Oregon made it to the dance last year has a 8 seed last year with a 18-12 overall record and a 9-9 conference record. This years Big East is better than last years Pac Ten

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   The Irish are on the bubble. I believe we need to win 6 out of the last 7 games with the only loss at #1 UCONN to have a decent shot at the tournament. That would mean big wins at west virginia and providence, also a huge win against #13 Villinova at home. Do I think it is possible? YES, for sure. We definitely have the talent level to beat anyone as we proved that by beating #7 Louisville by 33. If we were to win 6 out of last 7 our overall record would be 19-11 and a pretty decent conference record of 10-8. Notre Dame's RPI is not very high and our strength of schedule is not very high even though i believe it is a top five hardest schedule in the nation. I do not know how they do the strength of schedule because we have played 12 ranked teams after playing Louisville. The Irish have/going to have played many good teams that are not ranked like Cincinnati, West Virginia, Ohio State, Providence.

game to go:

South Florida 2/15 2:00 (all times ET)

@ West Virginia 2/18 7:00

@ Providence 2/21 12:00

Rutgers 2/25 7:00 (on ESPNU)

@ #1 Uconn 2/28 2:00 (CBS)

#13 Villinova 3/2 7:00 (ESPN)

St. Johns 3/6 7:00

The Key for the Irish to win these games: DEFENSE. Irish actually played defense against Louiville and look what happened, Irish won by 33.

The Key players' for the Irish to win these games: I was going to just say Kyle McAlarney because of outside shooting but then I had to include Ryan Ayers. When McAlarney and Ayers start shooting the ball well then that opens up so much for Luke Harangody. When they are shooting well it takes off the double teams off of Harangody. So then teams only can put one man on Harangody. Everyone knows "The Gody" can destroy anyone mano e mano.

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       The Fighting Irish destroyed the number 7th ranked Louisville Cardinals by 33 on Thursday night, 90-57. The Irish had lost 7 straight prior to this slaughter. The Gody went for 32 points and 17 rebounds, while McAmazing (McAlarney) and Ayer cobined for 10 threes. Ayers went 5-7 from downtown and ended up with 19 points. McAlarney went 5-9 from behind the arc for 21 points, McAlarney made a three with 8:32 left while getting fouled for the 4 point play. Jackson had a big night with 14 points, 4 assists, 5 rebounds, and 5 steals.

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Manti Te'o the second best recruit and best linebacker recruit in the nation according to ESPN. Te'o chose to attend Notre Dame over USC and UCLA. Te'o is expected to make a major impact next year and maybe even start all year for the Irish. Many people expect Te'o to flourish in the Notre Dame 3-4 defense. I was watching the ESPNU recruiting show yesterday and they say this is just what the Irish needed, a playmaker and the defensive side of the ball. Manti has not yet decided if he will go on a morman mission after his freshman year.

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