Notre Dame Moves on to NIT Final Four

While most Notre Dame fans would rather see the Fighting Irish men’s basketball team in the other Final Four, the one taking place in a bout a week, we sure can’t sneeze at this one.  Last night UND defeated Kentucky in the NIT quarterfinals to advance to the next round, the round-of-four. It’s a great moment for the team, a squad that went through a lot of adversity in the middle of the season.  They seem to be putting it together now, though.

Notre Dame won the game 77-76 before a fired-up crowd at the Joyce Center, their home gym in South Bend, Indiana. Notre Dame had beaten UAB in the first round and New Mexico in the second round. Now, however, the Irish will have to give up their home court advantage and play in New York at the famous Madison Square Garden. The young men couldn’t help but be happy about their recent turn of success. According to the South Bend Tribune, Irish guard Kyle McAlarney had this to say:

“The energy in the locker room, that’s what you play for. It’s a 180-degree turn, let me tell you… It almost gets to the point in the locker room where it was just silence; no one had anything to say…  Now it was just yelling and everyone just psyched. We feel like we’ve accomplished something… We feel like we’ve overcome a lot.”

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