Notre Dame Basketball: Irish pull off upset over Alabama in Round of 64

Notre Dame Basketball got some help with Jahvon Quinerly being injured but led the entire time in a win over Alabama to move onto the Round of 32.

Notre Dame Basketball fresh off their win over Rutgers on Wednesday night took the court on Friday in San Diego against Alabama. The Irish were able to upset the six-seeded Alabama Crimson Tide 78-64. If you did not know watching this game who was the actual eleventh seed you would have thought Alabama was it.

Notre Dame was able to get the game to be played more at their pace overall compared to Alabama much would rather get up and down the court and turn it into a track meet as much as possible.

Early on in the game Alabama, unfortunately, lost its star guard Jahvon Quinerly to a knee injury. Quinerly was driving the ball to the basket and looked to slip which led to the gruesome injury. Without him in the lineup, Alabama did not just look the same throughout the rest of the game.

Notre Dame shot it well for the second consecutive game in the NCAA Tournament. Against Rutgers, the Irish only was able to shoot 6-14 from 3-point range and were very sound in the paint. On Friday against Alabama the Irish shot it more efficiently going 10-16 from behind the three-point line. One of Alabama’s main weaknesses was defending the three-point line and Notre Dame was able to take advantage of it.

A main reason why Notre Dame shot it so well from three-point range was because of the play from Cormac Ryan. The senior guard in Ryan was on fire all game long finishing with 29 points. Ryan finished shooting 10-13 from the field, and 7-9 from distance. The seven 3 pointers hit was a new Notre Dame record in a game. Alabama just had no answer for Cormac Ryan all afternoon long.

Notre Dame had three others finish in double figures in scoring. Paul Atkinson Jr. coming off his 26 points performance in the first four matchup finished with 13 points, and 8 rebounds against Alabama. Nate Laszewski had another huge game scoring 10 points (2-3 from 3-point range) off the bench and six rebounds.

Blake Wesley played a much more efficient game against Alabama on Friday. Against Rutgers, the freshman star was 4-17 from the field, but against Alabama finished the game with 18 points on 8-14 shooting from the floor.

Unlike Notre Dame, the Crimson Tide just could not consistently hit from three-point range. They did make eight threes in the contest, but only ending up shooting 33% from downtown. Alabama had four finish in double figures scoring led by Keon Ellis and Jaden Shackelford. Ellis finished with 16 points and nine rebounds. Shackelford had 13 points and seven rebounds.

In Quinerly’s absence, Alabama got huge minutes and a great game from JD Davison. The freshman guard scored 11 points off the bench. Big man Juwan Gary also contributed with 10 points off the bench as well.

The Irish now advance to meet a very tough Texas Tech squad on Sunday. Notre Dame had an uncharacteristically high amount of turnovers finishing with 18 turnovers. They will have to get that down against the gritty defensive-minded Red Raiders.