Observations: Notre Dame puts away North Carolina State 69-57 to earn fourth straight road win

Notre Dame withstood the punch and delivered one back.

A game headed for blowout territory fast turned into a tussle in the second half, with a 17-point first-half Irish lead dripping away into a three-point deficit with a little less than 15 minutes to go.

As it has several other times in this season tracking toward an NCAA tournament bid, Notre Dame collected itself and warded off further leakage.

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Notre Dame beat North Carolina State 69-57 Saturday afternoon, moving to 16-7 and 9-3 in the ACC. It was their fourth straight road win. The Irish shot 52.9 percent and had four players reach double figures, led by forward Paul Atkinson Jr.’s 15 points. Guard Blake Wesley added 14, and guard Prentiss Hubb had 13 with four assists (and no turnovers).

Forward Nate Laszewski left in the first half with a lower leg contusion suffered when he drew a charge. Precautionary X-rays were negative, but he did not return.

“It’s a bruise, nothing structural,” head coach Mike Brey told reporters afterward. “Hopefully, he should be back Wednesday.”

Here are three observations from the game.

BOX SCORE

1. Surviving the worst case

A seven-man rotation leaves no margin for injuries or foul trouble.

Notre Dame ran into both.

Laszewski’s injury, which came not even five minutes into the game, left the Irish with six healthy rotation members. And Atkinson committed his second foul with 6:05 left before the break.

Brey had a choice of a five-guard lineup or giving someone else a chance – presumably forward Matt Zona. In the first half, he chose the former. It led to three turnovers and three misses in a little more than three minutes before Atkinson came back in for the final 2:46, a sign Brey didn’t see Zona as a viable option.

Notre Dame stuck with six men in the second half too, even after Atkinson committed his third foul a few minutes in and finished the game with four. He played all 20 minutes of the second half, as did Hubb and guard Dane Goodwin.

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The Irish took the lead for good after briefly falling behind by three with a pair of Wesley transition layups. They rarely try to push the pace, but some suspect North Carolina State shot selection created run-out chances they couldn’t turn down. Notre Dame had 20 fast-break points, eight of which came early in the game and helped it built a 23-6 lead in the first 12 minutes.

2. Trey Wertz steps up

If Notre Dame’s seven-man rotation felt like 6.5 recently, that’s because guard Trey Wertz has disappeared of late. He came into the game having played fewer than 18 minutes in his last four outings, including just eight minutes in the Jan. 26 win over North Carolina State. He had taken four total shots and scored three points in that span.

With Laszewski out, there was no time for him to be a ghost again.

He was anything but, especially in the second half.

Wertz scored seven of his 10 points after halftime, including an off-the-dribble three as the shot clock expired to tie the score at 40 with 13:55 left. Notre Dame never trailed after that. He also made a baseline jumper and capped the win with two free throws in the final minute. Twice, he picked North Carolina State leading scorer Dereon Seabron’s pocket for steals, and the latter led to his jumper.

3. Notre Dame Zone defense quells momentum

Brey called Notre Dame’s zone defense a “good weapon for us” earlier in the season. The Irish are predominately a man-to-man team – they played it on 86 percent of possessions prior to Saturday, per Synergy – but have used zone as an effective change of pace during a game a few times. It threw Clemson off in a Jan. 12 home win. Notre Dame used it for much of the second half of a Jan. 5 victory vs. North Carolina.

Saturday might have been its best work.

At first, it seemed the Irish could control the game with their man defense. They stuffed North Carolina State’s offense in a locker for the opening six minutes, holding it scoreless and turning it into a mess of turnovers and dribbling. The Wolfpack’s three go-to scorers (Seabron, guard Terquavion Smith, forward Jericole Hellems) provided no lift.

North Carolina State responded, though, with 22 points in the final 8:25 of the half to pull within five. It outscored Notre Dame 12-4 to begin the second half, with Smith as the primary assailant in both stretches.

In response, Notre Dame scrapped the man defense and went to a zone about eight minutes into the half, hoping to stop some dribble-drive breakdowns that had popped up. In theory, the zone should force a below-average passing team to try and move the ball around more.

The switch was shrewd. North Carolina State scored just 17 points in the final 14:26 and shot 33.3 percent in the second half. Notre Dame committed only six fouls after halftime. It rebounded all but four of the Wolfpack’s 24 missed shots in the second half, snuffing out second-chance points as a method for them to hang around.