Bulldogs trouble Notre Dame but fall to Irish, 70-59

SOUTH BEND, Ind. – Senior forward Alex Francis (Harlem, N.Y.) scored a team-high 17 points and the Bryant University men's basketball team gave Notre Dame all it could handle before ultimately falling, 70-59, at Purcell Pavilion Monday night in the BlackRock Gotham Classic.

Four Bulldogs (6-4) finished in double figures, with junior Joe O'Shea (Burlington, Vt.) adding 13, junior leading scorer Dyami Starks (Duluth, Minn.) adding 12 and rookie Dan Garvin (Bethel, Conn.) chipping in 10 despite the loss. The Irish (7-2) were paced by Jerian Grant's game-high 23 points, while Pat Connaughton and Garrick Sherman added 17 and 14, respectively.

Maynard added seven assists and paced the visitors on the glass with six rebounds, adding four steals to an all-around solid performance. Garvin posted the team's only two blocks of the night, while O'Shea and Starks combined to go 7-for-14 from 3-point range.

The Bulldogs started out the contest sluggish but shook off the dust quickly, applying pressure on both ends of the court to fill a 9-3 hole using a 14-3 stretch that saw Bryant tie the game and take over a five-point lead, 17-12, with 11:38 to go in the opening frame.

But a five-point swing in the span of mere seconds for the Irish – Grant would hit 2-of-3 from the line and Notre Dame would gather the rebound for a Connaughton trey – knotted the score once again at 17-17.

Back-to-back O'Shea threes from opposite corners put the Bulldogs out front once more and gave the visitors a 25-21 advantage, but it would be the Bulldogs' final lead of the contest as Notre Dame scored the next 11 points – emphasized by a Grant dunk – to go up, 32-25, with 3:55 left in the opening stanza.

The Irish would take a 39-27 lead into the locker room at the break, and while the Bulldogs cut that down to six, 40-34, three minutes into the second half and pulled within five on a Starks triple – his third of the game – at the 13:13 mark, 44-39, the visitors could never get much closer through the final 20 minutes.

The margin would hover around five entering the final eight minutes of action, but when O'Shea was forced to head to the bench with 7:35 showing after picking up his fourth foul, the lead grew to nine, 54-45, as the clock ticked down to six.

The Bulldogs would keep their deficit to single digits, though, fighting back to within four, 56-52, with 2:37 left on Maynard's second trifecta of the game. But with 79 ticks left and a seven-point deficit, Bryant would have to start fouling, and Notre Dame would go 8-for-8 from the line in the final 60 seconds to secure the 70-59 victory.

Notre Dame outrebounded the Bulldogs, 44-30, in the contest and went 20-for-26 from the line, including an 11-for-13 mark for Grant. Sherman led the game on the glass with 13 rebounds for one of two Irish double-doubles (Connaughton–17p, 11r). Grant also added a game-best nine assists.

The Bulldogs now head to Columbus, Ohio, for their next matchup, a Wednesday night bout with the No. 3 team in the nation in Ohio State at 7:30 p.m. live on the Big Ten Network.