When the brackets were announced on Sunday not a lot of people had Notre Dame Basketball beating a tough Rutgers team. You heard from multiple media outlets that Rutgers was just too tough for Notre Dame, or that the ACC was really down and that meant the Irish were just going to lose. It took two overtimes to do it, but the Irish advanced to the Round of 64 in exciting fashion.
Notre Dame was then faced with a Round of 64 matchup with a very talented Alabama Crimson Tide team. This led to some more different media outlets bringing up that Notre Dame had to travel all the way across to San Diego for this matchup and they would be having tired legs. The Irish sure looked fresh as they were able to send the sixth seed Alabama home after a rather convincing win by a final score of 78-64 behind a new career-high for senior guard Cormac Ryan.
The Irish now matchup against a very, very talented Texas Tech Red Raiders team led by Mark Adams. Texas Tech has had a great season so far in his first year as the head coach. The Red Raiders finished third in the regular-season Big 12 standings, and runner up in the Big 12 tournament losing to Kansas in the championship game.
Texas Tech had a great start in their first contest against Montana State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament just coming out and punching the Bobcats right from the jump and making sure there would be no first-round upset. Texas Tech won the game by 35 points against Montana State.
Once again the game is not until Sunday and again some media outlets have basically moved Texas Tech into the Sweet 16. To be personally honest Notre Dame is perfectly fine with that as well. There are people who think Notre Dame can compete with the Red Raiders no doubt, but it sure feels like a major consensus still do not believe in this Irish team even after what they have shown in their first two games in the last few days.
This Notre Dame team is hungry and really seems to be feeding off that a majority of people out there are not giving them a fair chance. This Irish team has proved many doubters wrong the first two games so far through March Madness already and they are looking to prove some more wrong on Sunday.
Here are three keys for Notre Dame to keep their run in the NCAA Tournament alive and beating Texas Tech.