Notre Dame Beats Cards By 22; UofL Clinches ‘Day of Shame’ in ACC Tournament

Mark BlankenbakerFebruary 22, 2024

Louisville men’s basketball never led Wednesday night, giving up 12 3-pointers to Notre Dame in a 72-50 loss at the KFC Yum! Center.

Seven of those 3s came from Notre Dame freshman Braeden Shrewsberry, who scored a game-high 23 points.

“They put us on our heels with their energy, their effort, their focus, their attention to detail, their toughness, all those things were superior to ours,” UofL head coach Kenny Payne said. “For me, down the stretch of the game, eight minutes to go, eight-point game we hadn’t played well. We’re fighting, it’s time to make a run, and (Shrewsberry) knocks down two 3s in a row. It goes to 14. You could see it in our body language from that point on. We didn’t have the necessary fight that we needed to have to combat that run they made, and they go on to a 16-2 run. At the end of the day, we’re trying to get these kids to understand how hard they have to fight. How it doesn’t matter who you’re playing, everybody’s a good player. If he’s got a jersey on his back, then you have to pay attention to detail, you got to be alert, you got to be focused, and you got to fight with everything in your body.”

The Fighting Irish (10-16, 5-10 ACC) took control in the first half with a 15-2 run and led 31-25 at the break.

After falling behind by double-digits early in the second half, Louisville (8-19, 3-13) cut its deficit back to eight with a 6-0 run at the 8:11 mark.

Shrewsberry answered the threat with back-to-back 3s, which jumpstarted a 16-2 Notre Dame run and put the game out of reach.

Sophomore guard Skyy Clark paced the Cardinals with 18 points and eight rebounds in his return from a broken rib. Junior forward Brandon Huntley-Hatfield added 16 points and six boards.

The Cardinals are off until they travel to No. 8/7 Duke at 7 p.m. ET Feb. 28 in Durham, N.C. The game will air on ACC Network.

“It is not pleasant,” Huntley-Hatfield said. “No one likes losing and we expected to win this game and then Notre Dame blew it open in the second half by making many 3s. So, we have to go back to the drawing board as a team and fix it. We have a week to prepare for Duke, so we are going to shift our focus now.”