Notre Dame men’s basketball advances in ACC Tournament after brutal foul call on Pitt

For a few seconds, no one knew what the whistle was.

Notre Dame forward Tae Davis, who just missed a put-back attempt at the buzzer in a 54-54 game against Pittsburgh in the first round of the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament, wasn’t even paying attention. He was frustrated his shot didn’t fall. The ACC Network announcers thought it was a possible goaltending. They were stunned, and the crowd in Charlotte, N.C. collectively gasped, when they found out the truth.

A foul had been called on Pitt forward Zack Austin. The ensuing replay showed that Austin’s arm may have grazed Davis’ on the way up, but not to the point of affecting his shot. Panthers head coach Jeff Capel couldn’t believe it. Austin, who is out of eligibility, was distraught.

“Honestly, I was more focused on the shot than anything,” Davis said. “Whatever happened outside of that, I was more focused on the shot, just trying to finish at the end of the game, like I said, competing and whatnot.

“But, I mean, the call is the call.”

Davis made the first free throw after the officials put half a second back on the clock. He intentionally missed the second. Pitt’s heave fell short. No. 12 Notre Dame defeated No. 13 Pitt 55-54, and the Irish will face North Carolina in the second round.

“Sometimes you need a little luck of the Irish,” Irish head coach Micah Shrewsberry said.

Davis’ free throw gave Notre Dame the win after an ugly 40 minutes of basketball, in which the Irish turned the ball over 17 times. At one point in the second half, Shrewsberry was caught screaming on a hot mic after a particularly bad turnover from Davis that nearly led to a Pitt bucket.

It didn’t because Austin missed a dunk at the other end. He had missed a dunk earlier in the game, too. Notre Dame shot poorly from the field — 36.9 percent, including 20.0 percent from beyond the arc — but Pitt was worse, shooting 36.2 percent including 18.2 percent from three-point range.

Davis did not play his best game, going 3 of 10 from the field and gifting Pitt 2 points with a technical foul. Neither did sophomore guard Markus Burton, who went 4 of 14 and committed 6 turnovers.

When Burton has an off day, it’s extremely hard for Notre Dame to win. But the Irish pulled it out, thanks in large part to graduate student forward Nikita Konstantynovskyi. The big man from Ukraine scored 10 points on a perfect 4 of 4 from the field and grabbed 9 rebounds, one short of a double double.

Graduate student guard Matt Allocco also helped, making 3 of Notre Dame’s 4 three-pointers. Senior guard Julian Roper II gave the Irish much-needed energy, too, scoring 8 points and finishing a team-high plus-6 on the day.

“I didn’t have my best game today, but that’s okay,” Burton said. “I just gave it to my teammates, because they came out and competed. Especially Julian Roper, he came out and gave us good minutes. He did a lot of great stuff. Nikita, Tae, a lot of the guys. They came in, they competed, they fought very hard.”

Notre Dame — who improved to 15-17 — was fortunate Pitt shot the way it did, because its season would be over if not. The Irish scored 20 points in the game’s first 10:11 but the offense went completely cold after that, with turnovers, bad ball movement and contested shots becoming hallmarks of their performance.

However, as Shrewsberry pointed out after the game, Notre Dame’s stingy defense in the final minute-plus prevented the Panthers from winning in regulation.

“You earned the right for that call to matter, because of the stops that you got at the end,” Shrewsberry said. “Now it’s mental. Watch film, walk through, figure out how we’re gonna attack, and then let’s get to play another day.”

For Notre Dame to upset a desperate No. 5-seeded North Carolina team sitting firmly on the NCAA Tournament bubble at 2:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday, though, the Irish will need to play a better game.