Boys Basketball: Brother Rice stumbles vs. Notre Dame

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Updated: February 12, 2012 8:09AM

Preparing for a Notre Dame team that was riding a two-game losing streak, Brother Rice coach Pat Richardson told his team to be ready for an athletic, quick team that would come roaring out of the gates.

The Crusaders managed to stay with Notre Dame on Tuesday night, but a sluggish second half doomed Richardson’s team as Brother Rice fell 63-44.

“I knew they played hard, and we don’t,” Richardson said. “We just don’t. We come out of a timeout knowing what we want to do, and we don’t. We play pick-up.”

Alex Majewski led Brother Rice (10-5) with 19 points and eight rebounds, with Garrett O’Neill adding eight points.

Matt Mooney had 17 points for Notre Dame (12-4) as six players had at least six points. Five players pulled down at least five rebounds as the Dons overpowered the Crusaders inside.

Majewski split two free throws with 1:36 left in the third period to cut Rice’s deficit to 35-28, but Notre Dame closed the quarter on a lightning-quick 7-0 run, Joe Ferrici scoring on a give-and-go and adding a three-point play, with Mooney scoring on a backdoor cut on an inbounds play.

A 7-0 run early in the fourth cut the deficit to 47-35, but the Crusaders got no closer.

“We weren’t moving the ball well, and we couldn’t get open shots,” Richardson said. “We used to have a pretty good offense here. We used to run motion. We used to cut, screen and reverse the ball. We don’t do anything. We just stare at the ball.”

Brother Rice finished with 18 turnovers and shot just 5-of-20 from three-point range.

“Today we were so much more aggressive than we have been in the last month or so,” Notre Dame coach Tom Les said. “We started off the season playing pretty hard, but we haven’t played this well in a little bit.”