Notre Dame didn't have many expectations in Big East play a few weeks ago. The win over first ranked Syracuse should change that.
Jan 23, 2012 - Only a week ago, Notre Dame was not a team looking forward to the rest of the NCAA season. It was easy to see why at the time, the Fighting Irish were on a two game losing streak in Big East play, a promising 3-1 start had dipped to 3-3 and they were facing the best team in the nation as their next opponent. That opponent, the Syracuse Orange, was 20-0 at the time and firmly entrenched into the polls as the best team in the country.
True, Syracuse was missing star player Fab Melo at the time, but it still didn't seem likely that the Irish were going to pull off anything special. And yet, something special is exactly what they pulled off. It wasn't just a close victory, Syracuse were defeated handily by a score of 67-58.
Notre Dame weren't expected to do much of anything with their season after dropping a few too many regular games against teams like Georgia and Sacred Heart (who?) followed by a quick drop in the Big East to Cincinnati. Suddenly, the Irish have some life in them. There's something to be said for momentum when it comes to sport, and the Fighting Irish have just about as much momentum as one can possibly get in College Basketball at the moment.
Looking at Notre Dame's upcoming schedule, it looks like at the very least an At Large bid in the upcoming NCAA tournament is in the cards for the Irish, but they should be able to wrangle out a lot more, at the very least a top five finish in Big East play. Notre Dame are currently 9th in the table but tied with UCONN and Seton Hall. The Pirates just happen to be the 4-3 Irish's next opponent and a victory over them would life the Irish to 5-3 and right up into the top five, easy as that.
Past that the Irish only play three ranked teams -- at least by the current rankings -- the rest of the season, and certainly nobody as daunting as the number one team. No. 18 UCONN and No. 19 Marquette come in two straight games after Seton Hall and then near the end of the year the Irish meet Georgetown. Past those three it's somewhat of a picnic for the lucky Irish. West Virginia provides the only real competition of the group, with the others being smaller squads like DePaul and St. Johns.
Syracuse will probably still win the Big East simply because they'll get Fab Melo back and continue to dismantle teams like they were doing for their first 20 games. There's no shame in being second though, and Notre Dame can most certainly pull that off with a bit of luck and a bit of skill against some of the lower teams in the conference.
They should know that they can do it. They are the lone victors over the Big Orange Machine of Syracuse, after all. Call it luck of the Irish all you want, but they did it fair and square.
For more on the Fighting Irish, check out One Foot Down.
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