Markus Burton wills Notre Dame to win over Georgia Tech
Markus Burton pointed to the sky with both hands as he skipped to the back of the handshake line. He had certainly earned a victory lap.
Burton scored 26 points, including 18 of Notre Dame’s 34 in the second half, as his team pulled an Atlantic Coast Conference win out of nowhere against Georgia Tech. The Irish led for only 1:49 of game time and trailed for 36:54, but they won 71-68 and improved to 10-10 (4-5 ACC).
Notre Dame engineered a 13-0 run for the win, led by back-to-back Burton threes that took the lead for good.
“I feel like pressure is a privilege,” Burton said. “I feel like if it’s not on me, then who else is it gonna be on? And I feel like I can handle it.”
It took the sophomore guard about 25 minutes to find his footing. He scored 8 points in the first half, a low mark for a player who came in averaging 23 in his past four games. When the second half began, he had his first 3 shot attempts blocked. But Notre Dame hung around, and with two short jumpers, Burton got in a groove.
As Georgia Tech maintained a small lead, Burton had 12 of his team’s first 18 second-half points. He got to the free throw line and created shots with penetration, despite the offensive struggles around him.
“Maybe we need to practice more at 9 p.m. and then practice more at 10 p.m., because I didn’t think we started either half very well at all,” Notre Dame head coach Micah Shrewsberry said. “I thought we were kind of sleepy, and sleepwalking a little bit. But, with that, you kept looking at the clock and you kept looking at the score.
“You look, and it’s only 43-37. We haven’t been very good, but we haven’t let them get away from us.”
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The Yellow Jackets stretched the lead to 7 with 5:35 left, but a quick three at the other end from sophomore guard Braeden Shrewsberry on an assist from Burton cut it down to 4. Burton — who had made 2 three-pointers already and entered the game shooting 40 percent from beyond the arc this season — took over from there.
On consecutive possessions, Notre Dame schemed Burton open for catch-and-shoot threes. First, he took a pass from graduate student guard Matt Allocco and knocked it down. Then, he took another one from junior forward Tae Davis and did the same.
On the go-ahead three, Burton said he knew the ball would sail through the netting as soon as he released it.
“He hits those two dagger threes because those other guys set him up,” Shrewsberry said. “That’s the biggest thing. That’s such a huge weapon. He’s put so much work in and he’s shooting the ball at a great level. He’s shooting it confidently. But the difference between last year and this year is he’s getting more catch-and-shoot threes.”
His back-to-back long balls gave the Irish their first lead of the game, and they never let it go.
“It just shows who we really are, honestly,” Burton said. “I feel like there’s times where we could have gave up and let Georgia Tech continue to just beat us. But we stood on what we stood on, and we just competed until the buzzer went off.”
Burton and the Irish can start a winning streak Saturday, when they travel to Coral Gables, Fla. for an 8 p.m. ET matchup against Miami.
