No. 1 Notre Dame tops Iowa 73-58 in ACC/Big Ten Challenge

Notre Dame will arguably face its biggest test of the young season Tuesday night when they host Iowa as a part of the annual Big Ten-ACC Challenge at Purcell Pavilion. The Irish have lost five straight against the Huskies – including the NCAA title game the last two seasons.

The Iowa Hawkeyes played almost 30 minutes of competitive basketball with the No. 1 team in the nation. The Irish won their first three games 89-64 over Bryant, 92-49 over Seattle and 83-48 over Loyola Maryland.

He broke the bone during the team’s Thanksgiving practice in Niceville, Fla., but played games Friday and Saturday, anyway.

Notre Dame then returned home with wins over Colorado and Northwestern for its first in-season tournament championship since 2010, but the basketball nation barely noticed.

Iowa is led by senior guar Peter Jok, who is averaging 25.3 points per game this season. “We expect Tyler to make a full recovery and look forward to him rejoining his teammates on the court soon”.

It didn’t get much better for the Hawkeyes, and Notre Dame began running away with the game for most of the quarter.

The Hawkeyes hung with the No. 1 team in the country after that, as freshman Kathleen Doyle found Disterhoft for an open 3 to decrease the deficit to 38-30 with 2:04 left in the half.

“We weren’t containing the ball, we weren’t guarding, we weren’t boxing out, we weren’t making layups and we weren’t making good decisions”, McGraw said.

Nine of the turnovers came in the opening quarter, including three on the Hawkeyes’ first three possessions of the game which helped the Irish open a quick 6-0 lead which Iowa never caught.

Opponent Three Point Shooting: Iowa has had a lot trouble defending the three point shot this year.

When Brey took over at Notre Dame in 2000, many of those players had been recruited by McCaffery. “I always thanked him for the cupboard not being bare when I got here in 2000”.

Defensive Rebounding: Iowa ranks 35th in defensive rebounding. I like Notre Dame to cover here, and it probably won’t be close. Iowa should have an advantage here.

Disterhoft led all scorers with 18 points. “She had a great game – a double-double – [and] really hurt us”. Gustafson achieved her fourth double-double of the season, proving to be an astronomical threat who aided Iowa on the glass with 11 rebounds and chipped in 16 points.

An Irish team that has long made its basketball living by being able to move it and pass it and score it (the Irish rank fourth in the league in scoring offense at 85.7 points per game) better than most has branched out early this season. He does struggle at taking care of the ball. He was a three-time captain for the Irish.

Why is Bonzie Colson so hard to defend?

Pemsl scored 23 points on 8-of-9 shooting and was an absolute monster in the paint in this one – he absolutely abused Colson for ten straight points during the second half and frustrated him to the point of a technical foul. “And I love that about this group”.

“We just weren’t moving”, said V.J. Beachem, who scored 11 of his 16 points in the second half. “That led to some turnovers”. Look for Farrell to have another big game Tuesday night.

Notre Dame: Gets a final tuneup Sunday with Valparaiso before next Wednesday’s against No. 2 UConn. “They just answered our runs”.

Brianna Turner paced Notre Dame with 15 points.

We know both teams are great offensively, but only Notre Dame plays any type of defense.