It was admittedly a quick turnaround for the visiting Irish squad but following up an underwhelming matinee performance at Madison Square Garden - the venue of the Big East tournament next week - with an even worse performance on the last Big Monday Game of the year does cap off a disappointing weekend for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish who have now lost consecutive games for the first time since the school record 9 conference game win streak.
More on the Irish loss after the jump.
To keep things short, the Irish were dominated on both ends, clearly hampered by Georgetown's superior athleticism and defensive effort. Jack Cooley, who came into the game averaging 20.7 points and 12.3 rebounds over the last 6 contests, was limited to just 2 points on 1 for 5 shooting and even worse, failed to grab a single rebound. The squad's other breakout player this season - Jerian Grant - also struggled mightily all night, scoring 8 points on 2 for 13 shooting.
Admittedly, fatigue did play a factor in this game. After starting out quick hitting 4 of the first 6 shots, the Irish started to look sluggish, particularly on the boards as John Thompson III did a great job of preparing a gameplan that took Cooley out of the game and got out to the Irish shooters extremely quickly. But one does have to wonder whether the fatigue is at least partially caused by Mike Brey's very short rotation (on an already shallow roster). It has largely worked up until now, but this team is young we do not know if everyone on the roster will be able to push through the quick turnaround of the Big East tournament and the pressure of the NCAA tournament on a worn down body.
Now the Irish desperately need a strong bounceback game against conference bottom feeder Providence not only for psychological reasons but to get that elusive double bye to give this team (or more like the first 6 guys) the rest it needs. The Irish will close out the regular season by playing host to the Friars this Friday at 7pm.