BIG EAST GAME PREVIEW: Notre Dame vs Georgetown

March 8, 2006


I do not think there has even been a better 12-seed in ANY conference tournament better than the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. When your conference has Notre Dame seeded 12 and Louisville seeded 11, you know you are watching something special.

Today, Notre Dame tries to put their season behind them and start anew against Georgetown, who needs to put the awful taste of their regular season-ending loss at South Florida. Georgetown should be watching this game from their hotel, not playing in it. They will need to put that out of their mind, quickly!

Here are the pregame stories and previews from around the internet:

Irish Eye Their Shot (Journal Gazette)
Irish Know All About Must Wins (Chicago Sun-Times)
Hot Seat? Brey a cool Customer (Chicago Tribune)
To Defend Hoyas, Irish Need Patience (South Bend Tribune)

To read our preview and see our game prediction, click read more below and don't forget to leave your prediction in the comments section!

READ OUR PREVIEW...CLICK "Read More" BELOW



Georgetown and Notre Dame meet for the 2nd time this year. In their first meeting, Notre Dame forced overtime with an improbable 4-pt play by Colin Falls in the waning seconds to force OT, but the Hoyas emerged victorious in double OT.

Notre Dame came up with two straight wins to qualify for the Big East Tournament in the last week, so they have been facing pressure for a couple weeks now. They have won five of their last seven games to get here. All season long, close losses have been the trademark of their season.

Georgetown was 8-2 at one point in conference play but stumbled down the stretch, losing four of their last six, but none more head scratching than their loss to South Florida on Saturday night, costing the Hoyas a 1st round bye.

Georgetown starts an imposing frontline with Roy Hibbert, Brandon Bowman and Jeff Green. The Irish will likely counter with a small line-up that includes 4-guards at times: Chris Quinn, Kyle McAlarney, Russell Carter and Colin Falls along with Torin Francis inside. Georgetown might be bigger, but they are ahletic as well and can go into a match-up zone to cover their shooters and still not be subject to a mis-match. Notre Dame will probably have to go a little bigger with Rob Kurz and Rick Cornett off the bench. Niether team is tremendously deep, but fatigue will not be much of a problem tonigh, that will come into play for the winner tomorrow.

Georgetown is just a 3-pt favorite, but look for a fired-up effort from the Hoyas coming off the humiliating loss at South Florida. Defense and rebounding wins in the Garden, Georgetown is head and shoulders above ND in those departments. The Irish 3-pt shooting will keep them within striking distance, but in the end, too much Georgetown size and some timely shooting wins this one.

NBE Blogger Prediction:

Georgetown 74 Notre Dame 66