What to know about Notre Dame men's basketball at Pittsburgh
The two highest-scoring freshmen in the Atlantic Coast Conference will be in Pittsburgh on Saturday night.
On Pitt, starting point guard Carlton Carrington has won ACC Rookie of the Week four times and might just add a fifth. He played all 40 minutes against Wake Forest on Wednesday, scoring 24 points in a 77-72 Panthers win. Carrington averages 13.6 points, 5.4 rebounds and 4.4 assists per game, featuring a silky-smooth midrange game.
Notre Dame fans are familiar with high-scoring freshman point guards who thrive in the midrange. Despite the team’s poor record, Markus Burton leads the ACC in points per game at 16.0. He has the 12th-highest usage rate in the entire country, coming in at 34.0.
Neither Burton nor Carrington is a top NBA Draft prospect, which means this might be the first of a few matchups. Here’s everything you need to know as Notre Dame heads to Pittsburgh, looking to snap a five-game losing streak.
Notre Dame at Pittsburgh game information
- Teams: Notre Dame (7-14, 2-8 ACC) at Pittsburgh (13-8, 4-6 ACC)
- Date: Saturday, Feb. 3
- Location: Petersen Events Center in Pittsburgh
- Time: 6 p.m. ET
- Television: ACC Network
- Streaming: WatchESPN/ESPN App
- TV announcers: Wes Durham (play-by-play), Dan Bonner (analyst)
- Radio: 960 WSBT-AM in South Bend
- Radio announcer: Tony Simeone
Matchup notables
• Carrington is not Pitt’s leading scorer. That would be 6-foot-8 senior forward Blake Hinson at 18.0 points per game, which ranks fifth in the ACC. Hinson shoots a whopping 8.1 3-pointers per game and makes them at a 41.2 percent clip.
• The other name to know: junior guard Ishmael Leggett, who averages 12.4 points and is Pitt’s leading rebounder with 5.4 boards per game.
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• Pitt’s NET ranking is closer to NCAA Tournament contention than you would think (but still not all that close), sitting at No. 61. Notre Dame is No. 171. The Panthers have won three of their last four, with the only blemish being a 72-68 loss to Miami on Jan. 27 in Coral Gables, Fla.
• Turnovers are the name of the game for Notre Dame at the moment, with the Irish ranking 337th out of 351 teams in Division I college basketball in turnover margin at -3.3. That’s the problem stat that most directly affects the final score, but it’s not the stat in which Notre Dame ranks the lowest.
• That would be fast-break points, in which the Irish are No. 347 in the nation at 4.62. The only teams ahead of them: Holy Cross, Green Bay, Dartmouth, and Bucknell.
