14. Irish Wear Green vs. North Carolina – Presented by Verizon – Notre Dame Fighting Irish – Official Athletics Website

SOUTH BEND, Ind. – The Notre Dame men’s basketball team (7-6, 1-1) will look to unlock the magic of the Green Jersey once again when it hosts the North Carolina Tar Heels (8-6, 1- 1) aligns. presented by Verizon. The game will be televised by CBS at 12 p.m. ET. The game is officially sold out – Notre Dame’s first game of the season.

ND vs. UNC

The 40th meeting between the Irish and Tar Heels will take place on Saturday. ND trails 9-30 in the overall series but has a better record at home at 4-6. In fact, the Irish have won two of the last three games against UNC at Purcell Pavilion.

Saturday also sees the second of four Irish Wear Green games this conference season. Notre Dame was successful in its first Green Game, defeating Syracuse on December 7th.

Finally, there is an interesting Irish connection in this series. North Carolina athletic director Bubba Cunningham earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in business administration from Notre Dame in 1984 and 1988, respectively. He is a former member of the Irish golf team (1982-83) and served as associate athletics director for finance and facilities at Notre Dame from 1995-2000 and as associate athletics director for external affairs from 2000-2002. Notre Dame’s athletic director is also a former Fighting Irish student-athlete. Pete Bevacqua graduated magna cum laude in 1993 with a BA in English. He was a substitute for head football coach Lou Holtz.

THE TAE COVER

Tae Davis has thrived in Markus Burton’s absence and developed into one of the league’s top talents. In terms of scoring, Davis had the fourth-best December in the ACC, averaging 20.0 ppg last month.

He has scored more than 20 points in three straight games while averaging 23.7 points per game on 61.5 percent shooting. He also averaged 7.7 rebounds and 2.0 assists in those three games. If Tae can succeed for two more games, it would be the first time an Irish player has scored five 20+ in a row since Ben Hansbrough in February 2011.

After all, he played a career-best eight straight games in double figures.

PROTECT PURCELL

By and large, the Irish did just that, going 6-1 in non-conference play at Purcell Pavilion. Without the disappointment against Elon, the Irish could have been 7-0.

This is their best home start since the 2021-22 season, in which they dominated Purcell 14-1 and qualified for the NCAA Tournament.

The Irish are averaging 80.6 ppg on 49.6 percent shooting at home. They have a points advantage of +13.4 at home.

The best individual player at home this year? Braeden Shrewsberry is averaging 18.0 ppg on an impressive 51.8 percent shooting percentage. He’s 41.5 percent from deep. The sophomore has scored more than 20 points in three of his last four home games.

COLLECT POINTS

Before Vegas, Burton was the only player in the country to average more than 20 points, more than 5 assists and more than 5 rebounds. Now the Irish continue to work together to make up for the 20+ points they lost per game, along with Burton’s ability to create shots for his teammates.

Three players in particular have closed the gap. Both Tae Davis and Braeden Shrewsberry are posting career highs in points per game and shooting percentage. Then there’s Matt Allocco, who is on pace to have the highest assist-to-turnover ratio in program history.

Davis is averaging 16.6 ppg, which ranks 10th in the ACC. For comparison, Tae averaged 9.2 ppg in his first year with the Irish. At 53.7 percent, he has the third-best shooting percentage in the ACC. When he dives deeper, he is 51 of 75 (.680) at the rim.

Tae has that explosiveness and innate ability to attack the rim like no one else on the team. He used that to his advantage and got all the way to the foul line. He’s averaging 6.9 FD/40, which ranks 27th nationally. The Indy native ranks third in the league in FT attempts and sixth in makes. He shoots the best hit rate of his career at 76.5 percent.

Next up is Braeden Shrewsberry, who is averaging 16.2 ppg (11th in the ACC) on 43.7 percent shooting. His 2.9 three-pointers per game rank second in the league, while his .373 three-point percentage ranks fifth.

Shrewsberry is particularly strong on three-pointers in the corners this year, hitting 52.2 percent (12 of 23), which is 17.2 percent above the D1 average.

He made 55 three-pointers in conference play last season, setting a new program record for ACC three-pointers. He ultimately scored 78 treys, which was the second-most for a DI freshman.

However, it is important to point out that he has expanded his overall arsenal. He has developed a dangerous floater that leaves defenders guessing. Oh, you think he’s going to shoot a three-pointer, well he’s going to drive and drive the wrong way now. He shoots 48.4% from the paint and is 12-15 at the rim. He’s at 52.8 percent from two overall.

Last but not least is graduate Matt Allocco. The 6-4 guard is averaging 10.2 ppg on 45.4 percent shooting from the floor and 46.9 percent from distance. His 3.8 assists per game rank 10th in the ACC.

Allocco has an assist-to-turnover ratio of 4.1, which ranks fifth nationally and leads all ACC players. Of course, it’s far too early to make comparisons, BUT the highest A/TO ratio in program history for a season was 3.16 by Martin Inglesby in 2000-01.

NOTRE NOTABLES

• Notre Dame is shooting 47.2 percent from the field, ranking fourth in the ACC.
• One defensive stat that stands out is the team’s three-point percentage allowed compared to average opponents – .296, which ranks 25th. This is the best ranking the Irish have achieved in this category since Haslam Metrics began tracking in 2014.
• Last time it was a story of good and bad. The bad thing was the first half. The Irish shot a season-low 28.1 percent and faced a 19-point halftime deficit of 24:43. The good thing was the second half. With a shooting rate of 60.0 percent, they scored a season-high of 51 points in one half. Tae Davis scored 22 of his 27 points in the second half. Now the Irish must recover from a tough 75-86 loss at Georgia Tech with UNC on Saturday.
• Freshman guard Sir Mohammed returned from an injury in the Georgia Tech game on December 31st. He had been out since the second game of the season on November 11th.
• JR Konieczny is averaging 10.5 ppg in the two ACC games this year, third-best on the team. JR shoots 8-18 (.444) from the floor and 3-7 from three (.429).

— ND —