Written by John Brice
It wasn’t quite wire-to-wire.
No matter.
More importantly, JJ Starling had the type of breakout performance for which Notre Dame had known was inevitable, and the Fighting Irish captured just their second win this month in a resounding, 76-62 shellacking of visiting Louisville Saturday afternoon inside Purcell Pavilion.
Starling, sans the medical tape that has oftentimes adorned his tender shoulder this season set the immediate tone with 16 first-half points en route to a game-best 22-point outing.
“Honestly, I was just having fun,” said Starling after Notre Dame secured its second Atlantic Coast Conference win. “We needed it. Shots were falling.
“I don’t think I did anything for the first couple of minutes. But I got my energy up [and got going].”
The Irish faced a meager, 9-7 deficit when Starling, Trey Wertz and Nate Laszewski helped ignite a 13-0 run that forever changed the game.
Once Notre Dame took an 11-point lead on Starling’s layup, 20-9, it never led again in the final 33 minutes by fewer than nine points.
“He’s really sharp,” Irish coach Mike Brey said of Starling, the former McDonald’s All-American. “He’s pure, and he wants to be coached.
“I thought to myself about a month ago, ‘There is a process here with him.’ Maybe the light bulb is going on a little bit for him on a lot of ends, and he’s just kind of playing.”
Starling hit nine shots from the floor, two of them 3-pointers, and he added a half-dozen rebounds – an increasing element in his game as the rookie continues to adapt to the collegiate landscape.
Yet it was his lone steal of the game that perhaps best defined Starling’s breakthrough ACC outing and likewise served as a de facto exclamation in the win.
Reading a lazy pass from the Louisville offense, Starling darted for a steal in the waning seconds of the first half, raced east to west on the hardwood and flushed a dunk – complete with a celebratory pull-up – that buoyed the Irish to an insurmountable, 46-24 halftime bulge.
“Honestly, I was just glad to be able to dig in defensively and end the first half right with a steal and a dunk,” said Starling, who’s scored in double figures in three of Notre Dame’s last four games and tallied 13 rebounds in his last 71 minutes on the floor.
Starling scored 11 of the home team’s final 16 points of the first half.
“We want him attacking and going for it,” Brey said. “I know he’s more physical when his rebounds are up, and he’s learning that’s an amazing weapon and advantage that he has.”
Now, on the strength of a win and with a week before their next game, the Irish are vowing to build on this performance – which also saw Nate Laszewski, Cormac Ryan and Dane Goodwin combine for 38 points in the win.
Notre Dame doled out 16 assists, had just three turnovers and led by as many as 30 points in the second half.
“It feels good,” Ryan said. “I wouldn’t say we’re surprised. I wouldn’t say we lost faith in this group.
“We all know what we’re capable of.”
— ND —