Notre Dame Basketball: 3 takeaways from huge upset win over Kentucky

Notre Dame out-rebounding Kentucky on the glass

Yes, you read that correctly that is not a misprint. Notre Dame was able to out-rebound the #1 team in the country coming into play Saturday when it comes to rebounding.

Enough cannot be said about Notre Dame just crashing the boards as a unit all night long. You expect the forwards to always be down there getting a majority of the rebounds but that was not the case for the Irish. Notre Dame had 33 total rebounds compared to Kentucky with 28. The game plan coming into this game by the Irish was clearly to make sure that they were crashing and getting on the board all night long. They can look at the box score and say that they definitely succeeded with the game plan.

Notre Dame only plays 7 players for extended minutes with really only two big men in the rotation right now. It may extend to eight with forward Elijah Taylor in the future eventually but is not getting a ton of minutes just yet. True forwards Paul Atkinson Jr. and Nate Laszewski contributed for 9 total rebounds which means that the Irish guards really did a good job of making sure to crash and grab as many rebounds as possible.

Dane Goodwin is an underrated rebounder and was able to battle against the bigger front line of Kentucky to get six huge rebounds. Cormac Ryan and Blake Wesley also were able to get a combined nine rebounds between the two. Notre Dame will definitely need to continue rebounding as a unit as they head into ACC play with the big front lines they will be going up against in league play.