Excuses, Excuses

For everyone that has been regularly checking Charlie's Nasties last week in hope of a new post only to be disappointed, I must apologize. After my first round of tests, I was compelled to take a long study break, so I flew to the land down under to party with this kid for a day or two.



But now that I'm back, it's time to at least partially recap two big games played by the men's basketball team.

Notre Dame proved that they could protect this house against 16th ranked Marquette in a game that showed very solid performances from everyone on ND's roster. Out of everyone who played, Rob Kurz's 5 points was the lowest total; 5 players notched double figures, Ayers contributed 9, and The People's Court dropped 7, including some clutch free throws down the stretch. Jackson continued his streak of superb play, accumulating 8 assists and coming up with some unlikely boards. Tory once again showed his ability to give the team an energy boost when he started off the game by blocking one of Marquette's 6'8" forwards, setting the tempo for the rest of the game.

The student section also helped set the tempo; by Saturday morning, the line to get in Gate 11 stretched all the way down the old Juniper Street. Some students began camping out in one of the heating ducts adjacent Gate 11 as early as Thursday afternoon to score some premo seats. By Friday night, 4 of these ducts were filled to capacity with sleeping students. The inpromptu campground was dubbed 'Breytopia' in honor of the coach who hooked them up with some free za after noticing the large turnout.
Breytopia would also like to thank the members of ND Nation who were kind enough to stop by with food and drink

None of the dorm rooms near me have ESPNU, and at first, things looked bleak for getting a chance to watch the UConn game, but lo and behold, I was invited to one of those fancy "meet and great" informal dinners at Legends.... where they were showing the game on a 15' projection screen. Unfortunately, ND's inability to capitalize on many Huskie mistakes late in the game prevented me from witnessing a win.

Harangody and Jackson both played very well, but the lack of production from anyone else on the team (except for McAlarney who scored 12 points with a very inefficient 4-14 shooting) ended up costing them the game. On the bright side, ND did take a top 20 team down to the wire on the road (which is considerably better than getting blown out by 30 points), held their star player to only 4 points, and best of all: the loss was on the road...

Go Irish. Beat Knights!