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Loss to Louisville Concludes the Notre Dame Basketball Season

By Chase Eyrich

CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA - MARCH 13: TJ Gibbs #10 of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish reacts after a play against the Louisville Cardinals during their game in the second round of the 2019 Men's ACC Basketball Tournament at Spectrum Center on March 13, 2019 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)
CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA - MARCH 13: TJ Gibbs #10 of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish reacts after a play against the Louisville Cardinals during their game in the second round of the 2019 Men's ACC Basketball Tournament at Spectrum Center on March 13, 2019 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images) /
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Notre Dame will end their 2018-19 season with a 75-53 loss to Louisville in the ACC Tournament.

The season that couldn’t end soon enough has officially concluded for Notre Dame.

It’s been a rough go this year for the Irish. With a top-10 recruiting class, there was reason for optimism, but a mix of youth and injuries washed those hopes away.

Coming off of one of their best performances of the season versus Georgia Tech, the Irish couldn’t keep things going Wednesday night.

Louisville provided a different form of attack. Rebounding was going to be a big theme going into the game considering their size, and the Cardinals took advantage.

With 50 total rebounds, Louisville optimized on their extra opportunities.

Notre Dame eventually was able to toss up the most shots of the night, but 27 percent shooting ended up telling the story that we’ve seen all season.

The level of difficulty for Notre Dame’s shots was head-scratching. One night removed from the best ball movement the Irish had played with all season was followed with much ball watching.

The first half was filled with a lack of movement without the ball. With four guys stationary and prepared to catch the ball, the defense of Louisville was never forced to work too hard.

Even when it came to rebounding, ball watching remained the theme.

Mike Brey was forced to make adjustment’s on the defensive end that switched the Irish from a 2-3 zone to man-to-man. That move pulled Notre Dame within nine points heading into the locker room.

Unfortunately, the shot selection was never where it needed to be to run with Louisville.

Brey made the comment at halftime, if his team was going to get back into it, they would need to make threes. From that point forward, Notre Dame would hit one of their ten three-point attempts.

Temple Gibbs would give his squad the best push he could with 21-points, but the short-handed Irish didn’t have enough in the tank.

After playing with six scholarship players for the majority of Tuesday’s game, seven would play just more than 24-hours later.

Quick turnarounds are the harsh reality of the ACC Tournament. That task proved to be too much for the short-handed Irish, as their season will end with a 14-19 record.

Next. Slap the Sign catches up with Notre Dame basketball recruit Jaden Ivey. dark

While this one will be hard to swallow, Notre Dame will direct their attention to getting healthy and coming back fully loaded for next season.