After a disappointing regular season, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish wound up doing what Micah Shrewsberry vowed not to do this year — play on Tuesday in the ACC Tournament. Nonetheless, the Irish were riding a strong finish to the regular season into a matchup against a Pittsburgh Panthers team that they had previously beaten, so the news wasn’t all bad. Even better, a vulnerable North Carolina team was slotted as a potential second-round matchup, so the Irish were presented with an opportunity to make some noise.
The Irish offense started off beautifully, with a slashing drive-and-score from Julian Roper and a nice dish in traffic from Markus Burton to Nikita Konstantynovskyi for a quick 4-0 lead.