2010 Notre Dame Fighting Irish Basketball: Notre Dame vs Georgetown

Sports can be incredibly fascinating and deliciously unpredictable on certain days. Ticketholders and television viewers won't always see something spectacular when they set aside a few hours to take in an athletic event, but once in a while, they'll be amazed and astounded by what they behold.

Saturday afternoon in Washington, D.C., a surprising Big East result with NCAA Tournament implications confounded hoops experts across the land. Statistics are often dry and misleading, but for one game on one day, the numbers told a story of scientific discovery as rich as the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Shroud of Turin.

Yes, it's true: So many numbers explained why the Notre Dame Fighting Irish - once given up for dead in the chase for an at-large spot in the NCAA Tournament - are back on the bubble after waxing an enigmatic Georgetown team at the Verizon Center. Seasoned college basketball observers had to be floored by what they encountered in the nation's capital city.

Just how improbable was this win for coach Mike Brey's bunch? For starters - literally - the Irish lacked their superstar starter, big man Luke Harangody. There seemed to be little chance that Notre Dame could hang against the Hoyas, given the presence of Georgetown big man Greg Monroe against a smaller and less experienced counterpart in the low post. Monroe figured to have a field day against the Irish, but as this game would show on many levels, expected events did not unfold. Logical progressions did not emerge. Research geeks had to love every minute of it, because they had so many chances to dig up situation-specific nuggets.

What, then, was so thoroughly remarkable about this game?

The envelope, please:

* With 12 minutes left in regulation time, Notre Dame had hit 15 of its 19 2-point attempts, just under an 80-percent clip. Yeah, that's precisely what Villanova shot in the second half of the epic 1985 NCAA national championship game against another Georgetown team coached by the father of current Hoya boss John Thompson III.

* With 11 minutes left in regulation, Notre Dame had gained offensive rebounds on 11 of its 17 missed field goal attempts. Put that in perspective: The Irish either made their initial shot attempt or rebounded it on all but six isolated occasions in the first 29 minutes. To use a not-very-sober expression, that's crazy. Only the very best teams, playing against grossly inferior (and smaller) opponents, should ever accumulate a high percentage of make-or-rebound numbers at the offensive end of the floor, but Notre Dame did the deed against Georgetown and Greg Monroe... without Mr. Harangody in the lineup.

* With 11 minutes left, Monroe and the same Hoya front line that figured to dominate the Irish had obtained only one offensive rebound.

* Georgetown guard Austin Freeman - who scored 24 second-half points on Tuesday against Louisville, en route to 29 for the game - had just five points on only five shot attempts in this game. That's another unheard-of development for one of the premier players in the Big East. While Ben Hansbrough dominated for Notre Dame by scoring 21 points on 7-of-11 shooting, Freeman was invisible on Saturday.

With these kinds of mind-blowing, logic-bending realities at work, the Irish forcefully re-inserted themselves into the NCAA Tournament conversation, while Georgetown - the single most puzzling team in the sport - dropped another home game as a heavy favorite. The Hoyas lost to South Florida at the Verizon Center a few weeks, and now they've been eclipsed by the Irish. Yet, this Georgetown squad vexed Villanova and throttled Duke.

Go figure, sports fans, go figure. On some days, college basketball - and sport itself - exists beyond any and all comprehension.

Notre Dame vs Georgetown Basketball Recap