Observations: Notre Dame closes out Syracuse for 79-69 victory, records 20th win

Notre Dame has hit the 20-win mark.

The Irish defeated Syracuse 79-69 Wednesday, moving to 20-8 overall and 13-4 in the ACC. They remain in second place, one game behind league leader Duke.

Paul Atkinson Jr. led Notre Dame with 20 points. Nate Laszewski added 17. Cormac Ryan had a season-high 16, his fourth straight game in double figures. Notre Dame shot 40.3 percent from the field and 33.3 percent on three-pointers. Syracuse shot 45.6 percent.

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Here are three observations from the game.

BOX SCORE

1. Paul Atkinson Jr. controls the glass

Syracuse’s defense will give offenses open three-pointers. That’s a product of the 2-3 zone defense that can be moved around with smart passing and cutting. Sure enough, Notre Dame took 53.2 percent of its shots from beyond the arc.

Notre Dame feasted on the other main product of it, though, with more success. Syracuse came into the game ranked 303rd in opponent offensive rebounding rate. Atkinson wore the Orange out on the backboard from tip to buzzer. He had a season-high 17 rebounds, with eight of them on offense. He drew four fouls on the offensive glass and nine overall. He helped hold Syracuse to three offensive rebounds.

“One of the weaknesses of the zone is offensive rebounding,” Atkinson said. “We took a lot of good shots. I was just trying to get the ones we missed.”

Notre Dame also stuck Atkinson in the middle of the zone as a distributor and found him down low for frequent post-up chances. He had four assists and could have had several others. He was the primary reason Notre Dame could keep pace with the Boeheim brothers in the first half.

Atkinson’s last two rebounds put the game away. He pulled down a missed Dane Goodwin jumper with 1:02 left and was fouled trying to put it back. He grabbed Jimmy Boeheim’s missed layup with 51 seconds left and drew a foul. He made both free throws after each and was 10 of 12 from the foul line.

2. Heavy dose of the Boeheims

Syracuse’s offensive game plan consisted of hurling isolations for Jimmy or Buddy Boeheim at Notre Dame’s defense and exploiting size mismatches on them. The former is a 6-6 guard. The latter is 6-8 and plays the four. Notre Dame starts four guards and gives up some size to most teams it plays.

The Irish understood they couldn’t shut them down, but just had to slow them. That was a struggle for much of the game, especially with Buddy Boeheim hitting contested jumpers. The brothers combined for 47 points.

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Notre Dame mixed up its defense, but didn’t find anything that could consistently generate stops or prevent either Boeheim from getting to his spots in the post. The Irish put Goodwin on Jimmy Boeheim to begin the game. Ryan saw plenty of Buddy throughout. Later in the first half, Notre Dame doubled post touches for Buddy and played several minutes of zone. It used both zone and man in the second half.

Ryan fared best and held his own when either Boeheim posted him up or ran an isolation against him. He forced a miss from Buddy on the last possession of the first half. He poked the ball free from Jimmy for a steal in the second half, which led to a Nate Laszewski three-pointer that gave Notre Dame an 11-point lead with 12:15 left.

3. Prentiss Hubb’s ‘Clinic’

Syracuse’s zone is like a Sudoku puzzle. It’s intimidating at first. There will be trial and error — sometimes a lot of error. Eventually, though, it’s solvable with enough practice and enough experience. Prentiss Hubb has both. At this point, he fills out the puzzle with a Sharpie.

“That was a clinic,” Brey said. “A clinic offensively. ‘I’m not going to get a shot. I don’t care. Watch me direct this.’”

In his fifth career game against the Syracuse zone, Hubb had a season-high 10 assists that accounted for 25 points. The player Brey has dubbed Notre Dame’s quarterback delivered one of his most crisp and controlled performances.

Hubb was content to take just six shots. Five of his assists were on three-pointers. Three were on mid-range jumpers. Two more were at the rim. He was a step ahead of Syracuse’s defense for most of the game. He even chipped in eight rebounds and a steal.

His most important play, though, was his improbable rainbow of a three-pointer with 3:34 left. A dead possession turned into a game-changing one when Hubb threw up a last-ditch shot following 20 seconds of Notre Dame nonchalant perimeter probing.

Splash.

It was the only three he made. His two misses were on rhythm shots. His first was an air ball when he was open in the corner.

“The lowest, worst-percentage shot maybe in the history of Notre Dame basketball,” Brey said. “It’s in the air and I’m like, ‘You know, this is probably going in. This guy has such good karma around him and believes.’”