It’s not just that the Notre Dame Fighting Irish basketball team has lost three in a row; its how they’ve lost three in a row.
Micah Shrewsberry’s crew has hit the skids and that’s more than a little frustrating since they looked like they were on the upswing earlier this month. But it’s being outscored in the second half in three straight games, and blowing first half leads in two of them, that’s the bigger problem. That their three losses are against three mediocre to bad ACC squads that the Blue and Gold should be able to best is just the icing on the cake.
Picture this: The Notre Dame Fighting Irish could be sitting pretty at 13-10 and 7-5 in the conference. That record would have Shrewsberry’s squad in the top half of the ACC. Instead, they’re 15th and in serious danger of missing out on the conference tournament.
Notre Dame Fighting Irish basketball second-half swoons now the norm
The Irish lost another game they should have won on Saturday afternoon. And once again, it was poor play after the break.
Notre Dame went into halftime against Virginia Tech with a solid if not overwhelming 33-26 lead. Then they were outscored 39-30 in the second half and the Hokies went home with the 65-63 upset win.
That performance followed the Irish trailing Florida State 29-28 after the first 20-minutes. However, despite making a comeback, they were outscored 38-32 and lost to a Seminoles squad playing for a coach who announced just days earlier that he was calling it a career at the end of the season.
And of course, before that was the coup de grace. Shrewsberry’s squad were leading the hapless Miami Hurricanes by 11 at the half. However, the Canes outscored the Blue and Gold, 38-21 after halftime. That blown lead gave Miami its first ACC win in 11 games.
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish have had some rough patches under Micah Shrewberry, but this is one of the roughest. And the head coach needs to find a way to stop it soon, or else concerns about the program's direction will only get louder.