By JACK LeGWIN
GREENSBORO, N.C. — The road to the NCAA Tournament hasn’t been easy for Notre Dame, but when adversity called, the Fighting Irish had all of the answers.
The Irish are going into the Big Dance playing extremely well, which they demonstrated after trailing by nine points, and rattling off a 26-3 run in the second half to put away North Carolina 90-82 in the ACC Championship game at the Greensboro Coliseum.
“I’m a bit in awe of what my team did tonight,” Irish coach Mike Brey said after winning the school’s first tournament championship. “To be down nine and to come out of that timeout, get eight or nine stops in a row. To put that together with beautiful basketball, which we have played all year, it was a lightning strike.”
After beating traditional powers North Carolina and Duke in back-to-back games, Head Coach Mike Brey said that going through Tobacco Road is anything but easy.
“To win a championship after going through Duke and North Carolina on Tobacco Road is extremely powerful,” Brey said. “It’s really powerful for our program, we had never won a conference tournament championship, but to be a part of the first one, I’m really proud.”
Seniors Jerian Grant and Pat Connaughton came up big in key situations in the win, Grant scoring 24 points while dishing out 10 assists and Connaughton scoring 20 points on 7-9 from the field, 4-5 from the three-point line.
“This is what I envisioned,” Grant told SNY.tv after the win. “I had no idea it would get to this point, but this is special. The way the guys welcomed me back, the way coach welcomed me back, I wanted to help get this for these guys.”
Heading into the NCAA Tournament, Brey says that seeding is the last thing on the team’s mind.
“I told my guys, don’t worry about the seed,” Brey said. “We are thrilled we are going to be in that thing. We will go wherever they send us.”
PHOTO- NOTRE DAME MBB
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