Notre Dame Basketball: Statistical Recap of Boston College

No.25 Notre Dame Fighting Irish (20-7, 9-5 ACC) chalked up their third straight win on Tuesday night as they took down rival Boston College (9-18, 2-12) 84-76. It wasn’t the prettiest of wins for the Irish, but there will be nights when you don’t have it all and Tuesday night was one of them. Notre Dame is continuing to show that their four game losing streak a few weeks ago was just a blip on the radar.

Notre Dame’s first half wasn’t pretty, considering how well they played against Florida State. The offense looked flat, which permeated to the defensive end. Boston College could not miss in the first half, Ky Bowman in particular. Bowman was 5-9 from the floor, 3-7 from three in the first half for 17 points. BC as a team was 58% from the floor and 54% from long range. The Eagles averaged 1.29 PPP, which is exceptional.

The Irish did a decent job of bottling up BC’s top player Jerome Robinson in the first half. Robinson was held to just 11 minutes in the first half, mostly due to foul trouble.

The Irish did an even better job on Jordan Chatman, BC’s fourth leading scorer and best three-point shooter. Chatman played 18 minutes and didn’t even record a FG attempt.

Matt Farrell and Bonzie Colson led the way for the Irish in the first half. Both had 8 points a piece. Farrell was 2-4 from deep with 2 assists. Colson didn’t have best half on the glass as he only hauled in 2 rebounds.

Notre Dame averaged 1.05 PPP in the first, which isn’t terrible, but we’ve seen much better efforts from the Irish previously.

The Irish offense got back to its regular ways in the second half, but the story here was the defense. Notre Dame clamped down in the second half allowing BC to average 0.72 PPP. BC only shot 33% in the second half, and 22% from beyond the arc. You had to expect that after they were lights out in the first half.

Robinson did absolutely nothing in the second half, as he went 0-7 from the floor. Bowman shot the ball decently, but wasn’t nearly as hot as hot as he was in the first half.

Notre Dame’s offense was considerably better in the second half as they average 1.22 PPP. They also shot 45% from the field, and continued to cash in at the free throw line. After falling into second place nationally in free-throw percentage during their four game slide, the Irish have moved back into a first — a whole percentage point over Villanova.

Last week in the comments section we discussed V.J. Beachem’s rebounding ability, or lack thereof. He apparently read it, because he he’s averaged 6 rebounds in his last two games. He was Notre Dame’s leading rebounder on Tuesday night as he tallied 8 boards. Colson has been shouldering pretty much the whole load on the boards this season, if the Irish can get Beachem to keep rebounding the ball like this it will be very beneficial.

Speaking of Colson, he continues to keep making his case for ACC Player of the Year. Tuesday night was his third straight 20+ point effort. He also chipped in with six rebounds. Over his last three he’s averaging 26.6 PPG, 11.6 RPG and is shooting 67% from the field.

My pick-to-click Matt Farrell continues to keep clicking. Farrell had another big night as he poured in 19 points and was 5-11 from three-point land. It was one of his slower nights dishing out assists, as he only had three.

It wasn’t the best of wins for the Irish, but it was nice to see them pull out a victory when they didn’t bring their best. Notre Dame will travel to Raliegh, NC on Saturday with a matchup with NC State. Despite being second to the last in the ACC, the Wolfpack are much better than their record indicates. Keep up with us here at One Foot Down as we’ll have more on that matchup in the coming days.