Men's Basketball: Irish are the No. 2 seed in Brooklyn as postseason parade commences
Tom NoieMEN’S BASKETBALL
ACC TOURNAMENT
Quarterfinals
►WHO: No. 7 seed Virginia Tech (20-12 overall; 11-9 ACC) vs. No. 2 Notre Dame (22-9; 15-5).
►WHERE: Barclays Center (19,000), New York
►WHEN: Thursday at 7 p.m.
►TV: ESPN2.
►RADIO: WSBT (960 AM).
►ONLINE: Follow every Notre Dame game with live updates from Tribune beat writer Tom Noie at twitter.com/tnoieNDI.
►NOTING: Notre Dame’s quarterfinal opponent was not decided until after Tribune deadline Wednesday. … Nine teams will have already been eliminated by the time the Irish take the tournament floor. … This is the first time since 2018 that the league tournament is being held in the New York borough of Brooklyn. … After losing its first ACC tournament game (to Wake Forest) when it joined the league in 2013-14, Notre Dame had won at least one tournament game each of the last seven seasons. It has twice played for the league championship (2015, 2017). … This marks the third time in nine seasons in the ACC that the Irish earned a top-four finish and double bye and first since 2017, when the tournament also was played at Barclays Center. … The Irish won two of its last four and seven of nine to close the regular season with a school record 15 conference wins. They won a combined 20 league games the previous three seasons – three, 10, seven. … Notre Dame played each of its last eight league games against teams that did not have winning conference records. The last time it played a league game against a team with a winning record was Feb. 2 at Miami (Fla.), a 68-64 Irish win. … Notre Dame won its last three ACC games each by double digits – 10, 34, 24. … The Irish finished ranked in the top five in the ACC in eight major statistical categories, including second in free throw percentage (.753) and 3-point percentage (.380), third in 3-point field goal percentage defense (.317), fourth in scoring defense (66.1), scoring margin (+6.06) and assist/turnover ratio (1.37) and fifth in field goal percentage (.460) and field goal percentage defense (.427). The Irish ranked ninth in field goal percentage defense last season. … Freshman guard Blake Wesley finished 15th in the league in scoring (14.7 ppg.). Fellow guard Dane Goodwin was 19th (14.0). Power forward Paul Atkinson, Jr., was ninth in rebounding (7.10) and 10th in free throw percentage (.766). Guard Prentiss Hubb was second in assist/turnover ratio (2.60) for all games and first in conference games (4.40). … Notre Dame was 7-5 in all games away from home this season, 1-3 in neutral site games with the win over Division II Chaminade in the second round of the Maui Jim Maui Invitational in Las Vegas. … Duke, Notre Dame, North Carolina and Miami earned the top-four seeds and double byes. … Thursday’s winner advances to Friday’s second (late) semifinal game (approximately 9:30 p.m.) to face the winner of the North Carolina vs. Virginia/Louisville quarterfinal. ... The Irish were 0-1 vs. the Hokies this season.
►QUOTING: “I love the city. It’s the best city in the world, aside from South Bend.” — Notre Dame senior guard/captain Cormac Ryan, a New York native back in the big city for the first time in his Irish career for this week’s ACC tournament.
— Tom Noie
Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on Twitter: @tnoieNDI