Observations: Despite 14 three-pointers, Notre Dame falls 79-74 at Wake Forest

Notre Dame head coach Mike Brey knew it wasn’t going to be easy.

“I thought we were going to have to score 80 tonight to get out of here,” Brey said.

Spot on. 

Notre Dame fell 79-74 to Wake Forest in Winston-Salem on Saturday afternoon despite hitting 14 three-pointers. Entering Saturday’s game, they were 11-0 this season when they hit at least 10.

The Irish fell to 19-8 (12-4 ACC), while the Demon Deacons improved to 21-7 (11-6 ACC). The Irish shot 47.1 percent from the floor and 45.2 percent from behind the three-point line. They made 85.7 percent of their 14 free throw attempts.

Once again, freshman guard Blake Wesley showed up. He led the Irish scoring efforts with 24 points, including six three-pointers. He added three steals and a pair of rebounds. The 24-point outing was his seventh game this season with more than 20 points, and it tied his season high from the Illinois game on Nov. 19.

In addition to Wesley, Notre Dame had four other players score in double figures: Cormac Ryan (12 points), Paul Atkinson (11 points), Nate Laszewski (11 points off the bench) and Prentiss Hubb (10 points).

The Irish defense held the Demon Deacons in check for most of the first half, as they headed into the locker room at halftime shooting just 30.6 percent from the floor. The second half was a different story, as Wake Forest outscored Notre Dame 44-33 and posted a final field goal percentage of 41.4 percent.

Wake Forest’s top-two scorers did what they usually do. Alondes Williams had 23 points (17 in the second half), while Jake LaRavia posted 20.

Notre Dame had their final notable challenge of the season in Winston-Salem, a chance to improve an NCAA tournament resume that has the team in the field. They fell to 2-6 against Quadrant 1 teams this season in the loss, and they sit in second place in a jumbled ACC.

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As Notre Dame heads toward March, they have very minimal room for error. But it hasn’t been a huge issue thus far. If they fall on Wednesday to Syracuse, it will be the first time the Irish have lost back-to-back games since Dec. 3.

“We haven’t been in bounce back mode much, but when we have, we’ve delivered,” Brey said. “That’s where we are now with the Syracuse team coming in here on Wednesday.

“I have full confidence in this group. They’re in the midst of chasing some things that they’ve never done before, and they’ll rally and be ready for practice on Monday.”

Here are three additional observations from the game.

1. Kept alive by threes, killed by turnovers, rebounds

Yes, Notre Dame hit 14 three-point shots on Saturday, but a heavy reliance on the three can be an unsustainable business model, especially if you’re going to turn the ball over 15 times and notch just two offensive rebounds.

Notre Dame was averaging 10.2 turnovers per game entering Saturday’s contest, and they finished with 15. With most of the second half remaining (14:30), they had 12. Three players had at least three turnovers, a rarity for a Brey-led team.

Turning to the offensive rebound problem, which went in Wake Forest’s favor 16-2, Brey noted after the game that the low number was due in part to a smaller lineup, a lineup which was partially a choice and partially done out of necessity.

Notre Dame started Ryan in Laszewski’s place, leaving Atkinson as the only big on the floor to begin. Atkinson picked up three fouls in the first half, leading to increased playing time for Laszewski, at least until he picked up three fouls of his own. At that point, they had to go small for a while.

Brey spoke to the benefit of the smaller lineup after the game.

“We played small a bunch, which we’ve done, which helped us,” Brey said. “Think about the first half, we won the first half. We played small, we had 43 points, but they had nine offensive rebounds. We’re going to give up something. But can we score more? We really couldn’t do that in the second half.”

He’s right, there will always be a trade off with personnel. But complete domination on that side of the court won’t work too well come March.

2. The streaks continue

In six of Notre Dame’s previous nine wins, their opponent has taken a second-half lead, and they have responded with a run to take control and ultimately earn the victory. On Saturday, they weren’t so lucky.

In the first half alone, Notre Dame went on runs of 18-4, 8-0 and 17-4. The 8-0 run was thanks entirely to Wesley. Wake Forest had 8-2, 9-0 and 6-0 runs of their own in the first 20 minutes. The Irish led 41-35 at halftime.

The second half was a little less streaky, but Wake Forest did post a 9-2 run, one which began with 11:18 to go. At that point, it was 65-63 in favor of the Demon Deacons. Laszewski hit a three, but 66-65 was Notre Dame’s last lead of the day. From there, the game began to slip away.

3. Goodwin struggles in another top ACC game

Irish guard Dane Goodwin has posted at least 10 points in every game this season with the exception of two: the Jan. 31 game against then-No. 9 Duke where he did not score, and Saturday against Wake Forest where he posted just three points. 

Notre Dame’s leading scorer averaged 15.1 points per game, but he didn’t get his only basket of the day until nearly 22 minutes into the game. His third point was a free throw coming as a result of a foul on the aforementioned basket. In total, Goodwin was 1-for-4 from the floor and 0-for-3 from behind the arch.

If Notre Dame wants to make a run in the ACC tournament, they are going to need Goodwin to get over this slump he keeps hitting in bigger conference games.