CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Getting to the second round of the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament was an adventure for Notre Dame.
Now the Irish have a chance to take on North Carolina on Wednesday afternoon.
No. 12 seed Notre Dame (15-17) advanced on Tae Davis’ last-second free throw to defeat Pitt 55-54 in Tuesday’s opening game of the tournament. The Irish prevailed despite ACC scoring leader Markus Burton (22.2 points per game) being limited to 10 points.
“Everybody has to be ready at all times and all hands have to be on deck,” Davis, who finished with 11 points, said of picking up slack when Burton has a rough outing. “I think it takes all of us to compete at a high level and to be able to win games.”
Forward Nikita Konstantynovskyi contributed a season-high 10 points and a game-high nine rebounds for the Fighting Irish.
Fifth-seeded North Carolina (20-12) received a first-round bye.
Based on most projections, the Tar Heels need multiple victories in the ACC tournament in order to have a chance for an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.
“I think it’s most important to focus on what’s real,” North Carolina coach Hubert Davis said. “What is real is the game in front of you and we play on Wednesday, and our job and our responsibility is … to play our best game on Wednesday, and if we play well enough, we get to play on Thursday, and our preparation would shift to that.”
But the desire to win should extend beyond that, Davis said.
“The motivation is always there,” Davis said. “If you don’t have the motivation for having the opportunity to compete, you shouldn’t be playing. The opportunity to play in the ACC tournament is a great opportunity and we’re excited about the challenge.”
North Carolina won the regular-season meeting with Notre Dame, pulling out a 74-73 road victory on Jan. 4 thanks to Elliot Cadeau’s four-point play with 4.8 seconds remaining. There were 17 lead changes in that game.
“I haven’t had a chance to watch them a lot (since that first meeting),” Notre Dame coach Micah Shrewsberry said. “Obviously, everything with Carolina is their transition. They’re so good at that, have traditionally been so good at that.”
Even though the Tar Heels’ six-game winning streak ended with Saturday night’s 82-69 loss to ACC regular-season champion Duke, UNC’s rally from a double-digit deficit to take the lead provided a boost in confidence.
“I think that’s something that we want to take over to Charlotte,” North Carolina forward Ven-Allen Lubin said. “We’re just keeping the mentality of one game at a time, you know, just focusing on what’s the next point in front of us, and just take it from there.”
–Bob Sutton, Field Level Media
