Notre Dame dominates in 84-63 win over Georgetown
Notre Dame had seven players score at least 8 points and used a 15-1 scoring run early in the first half, then another 13-2 scoring run late in the second half, on its way to an 84-63 blowout win over Georgetown Saturday at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C.
The impressive win moved the Irish to 3-0 and dropped the Hoyas to 2-1, in the first significant test for either team.
Here are three instant takeaways from Saturday’s victory against a Big East team.
Decisive stretch
This game was essentially won during a nine-minute stretch through the early and middle stages of the first half.
Trailing 6-4, Notre Dame went on a 15-1 scoring run to jump out to a 19-7 lead that it never surrendered, and was never serious threatened.
During this stretch when the Irish put together their scoring spurt, Georgetown was held without a field goal for 8:50 and it missed 15 straight shots.
Surprisingly, Notre Dame made its run without much help from star sophomore guards Markus Burton and Braeden Shrewsberry.
The two heated up in the second half. Burton finished with 16 points and Shrewsberry added 9. But the two combined for only 3 shot attempts and 6 points in the first half.
This Irish first-half scoring run — which included a 13-0 spurt — set a tone for the game that Georgetown never changed or recovered from.
Veteran presence
With Burton and Shrewsberry held in check in the first half, Notre Dame looked to graduate transfer guard Matt Allocco for an early spark, and the Princeton transfer came up big.
Allocco scored 15 of his game-high 17 points during the dominating Irish first half.
At one point, Allocco scored eight straight points for Notre Dame. He made his first 5 field goals and his first 4 3-pointers of the game in pushing the Irish to a 44-29 halftime lead. Allocco also added 7 assists and 5 rebounds to earn game-ball honors.
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Allocco was so good to start the game, Notre Dame head coach Micah Shrewsberry enjoyed the luxury of keeping Burton on the bench for seven minutes in the first half.
Another grad transfer, forward Burke Chebuhar from Lehigh, also played well in the first half, coming off the bench and hitting both of his two 3-point attempts on his way to 9 points in the game.
A third grad transfer, Nikita Konstantynovskyi, also chipped in off the bench with 8 points on 4-of-5 shooting.
Balancing act
In what turned out to be a clinical performance on both sides of the court, Notre Dame was about as efficient from start to finish as a team could be, especially in the first half.
Notre Dame went 17-of-26 shooting (65.4 percent) and 7-of-12 from 3-point range (58.3 percent) in the first 20 minutes. It assisted on 12 of its 17 baskets and played almost a perfect first half in building a 44-29 halftime lead.
Defensively, the Irish held Georgetown to 10-of-38 shooting (26.3 percent) and just 3-of-18 (16.7 percent) from behind the arc in the first half
And while this blowout became somewhat sloppy late in the second half with the benches cleared, the Irish still shot 32-of-54 from the floor (59.3 percent) for the game. Notre Dame won the rebounding battle 42-33, assisted on 20 of its 54 baskets, and held Georgetown 22-of-70 (31.4 percent) shooting.
