CHARLOTTE – The Notre Dame men’s basketball team’s 2024-25 campaign came to an end in the second round of the ACC Tournament after falling 76-56 to a game North Carolina squad desperate to be on the right side of the NCAA bubble. The Fighting Irish finished the season with a 15-18 overall record.
Guard Markus Burton led with 11 points on Wednesday. He finishes the season averaging 21.3 points per game which will undoubtedly land in the top-10 in the country when the dust settles.
Burton becomes the first Irish player since Luke Harangody in 2009-10 to average 20+ points in a season. Burton also joined very elite Irish company with Ring of Honor inductee David Rivers as the only two Notre Dame players to average 20+ points and 3+ assists in a season – Burton averaged exactly 3.0 assists per game.
Burton is now a two-time All-ACC honoree after earning Second-Team All-ACC honors. He earned First Team All-ACC honors from the Associated Press.
Matt Allocco finishes with the highest assist-to-turnover ratio in program history at 3.5. He also produced the third-highest three-point shooting percentage for a season in program history, finishing at 46.5 percent.
HOW IT HAPPENED
North Carolina just couldn’t miss from three, particularly Jae’lyn Withers. The Tar Heels started the game 6-9 from beyond the arc while Notre Dame began 3-16 overall from the field, resulting in an early 22-8 deficit.
Next, Markus Burton attacked the rim and scored five straight points. That led to a 7-0 run after a pair of Tae Davis free throws.
The Tar Heels kept feeding the hot hand of Jae’lyn Withers. He entered the game averaging 6.0 ppg and shooting 43.5 percent from three. He proceeded to go 5-6 in the first half from beyond the arc ultimately building a 20-point advantage at 37-17.
The Fighting Irish ended the half on a 9-2 run comprised of two Allocco treys and an and-one from Davis, thus cutting the deficit to 14 at 43-29.
Notre Dame was 10-34 from the field and 4-11 from three, while North Carolina was 14-30 overall and 9-17 from deep. The Irish were led by nine points from Allocco who was 3-4 from deep.
Davis scored the first bucket of the second half to pull the Irish within 12. Then UNC’s Ven-Allen Lubin worked down low to score five of the next seven, coupled with yet another Withers three (his sixth) and the Tar Heel lead was back up to 19 at 53-34 with 14:39 remaining.
The Irish just couldn’t cut into the deficit after this point. Withers finished with 21 points on 7-10 shooting from three-point range. Ven-Allen Lubin supplied the power in the paint with a 17-point, 10-rebound, double-double.
Tae Davis finished with nine points and three rebounds. Nikita Konstantynovskyi recorded eight points and a team-high nine boards. J.R. Konieczny tallied seven points and three boards.
