Dane Goodwin, Notre Dame push Duke to final minute in Mike Brey’s Cameron farewell

Mike Brey won’t forget his last trip to Cameron Indoor Stadium as Notre Dame head coach, if not as a coach of any team. The building was his office for eight formative years, and later, the site of a special Irish win in a stirring 2015-16 season. It evokes emotion and nostalgia from him like no road venue can. He even saw his mentor, Mike Krzyzewski, during shootaround before Tuesday evening’s contest.

The game itself will be a memorable one for him too.

No, it wasn’t a thrilling win. It also wasn’t a lopsided loss that will be scarred in his mind. Rather, the Irish and Blue Devils authored a tense 40-minute contest not decided until the final seconds in college basketball’s most famous home-court atmosphere. Brey has lived through plenty of those in his career, both on the bench next to Coach K and opposite the scorer’s table from him. He experienced it once more.

“That was a great college game,” Brey said.

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Notre Dame lost to Duke 68-64 Tuesday, but not before slicing the Blue Devils’ lead to a single point on guard JJ Starling’s layup with 36 seconds left. Duke’s Mark Mitchell, though, answered by draining a corner three-pointer with 12 seconds to go. Notre Dame intentionally helped off Mitchell — a low-volume 36.1 percent three-pointer shooter — to coax a pass from guard Tyrese Proctor to him. The Irish followed their scouting report on Mitchell, who entered play averaging just 1.4 three-point attempts per game. Mitchell simply beat it.

“That’s what we wanted to give him, and he made it,” Brey said.

The Irish (10-16, 2-13 ACC) shot 42.6 percent overall and 48.5 percent in the second half. They were 6 of 28 (28.6 percent) on three-pointers and posted a 6-to-10 assist-turnover ratio. Duke (18-8, 9-6 ACC) shot 43.1 percent from the floor.

Dane Goodwin led Notre Dame with 25 points, ending a stretch of two single-digit scoring outputs in the last three games. He had not hit 20 points since Nov. 18 against Lipscomb. Notre Dame twice whittled 10-point second-half deficits down to four, denying Duke any hope of a stress-free final few minutes.

“We put ourselves in position a number of times, especially on the road, but couldn’t get over the hump,” Brey said.

Goodwin lit the fuse on both spurts and scored 17 straight Notre Dame points, mitigating the poor three-point shooting and season-low-tying assist output. The Irish trailed 44-35 with 13:35 to go when he began his takeover. It started with a three-pointer following a loose ball scramble. His paint jumper pulled Notre Dame within four.

Duke regained a grip on the wheel, though, when the Irish left guard Jeremy Roach unattended for a putback layup of a missed three-pointer. Two free throws from forward Kyle Filipowski and a Trey Wertz lost-ball turnover that led to a Dereck Lively II dunk pushed the Blue Devils’ lead back to 10.

“We were on the verge of getting throttled,” Brey said.

But Goodwin wasn’t gone. A personal 5-0 run and four possessions of trading baskets with Filipowski had the Irish down 56-52 with 4:29 left. Consecutive three-pointers from Cormac Ryan and Starling pulled the Irish within two, 62-60, with 87 ticks remaining. An offensive rebound and kick-out from Wertz set up the former, and Goodwin assisted on the latter after forward Ven-Allen Lubin blocked Filipowski.

All the while, Notre Dame kept Duke off-balance on offense by frequently shifting between man and zone defense. The Blue Devils went 5:08 without a field goal in one stretch of the second half.

Notre Dame’s stilted offense in the first half spilled into the first few minutes of the second. The Irish trailed by as many as 14 points after halftime. They ended the first half by making just 4 of their final 17 field goal attempts. All told, they were 1 of 11 on three-pointers and had just 1 assist in the first half. They trailed 31-23 at halftime.