Head Coach Mike Brey has led Notre Dame back to the Sweet 16. Pit file photo
[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n what would be the best game of Saturday’s slate, Notre Dame took down the Butler Bulldogs 67-64 for the overtime victory and to advance to the Sweet 16.
After giving up the lead and dropping behind by 6, the Irish fought back to overcome the deficit. Jerian Grant scored 16 points while notching five assists and five rebounds, but it was Notre Dame’s Steve Vasturia that led the Irish to victory.
Vasturia led Notre Dame with 20 points, shooting 6-for-11 with six from afar while sinking all six attempts from the charity stripe.
“Yeah, I think in this offense, the way we play, we kind of just take what the defense gives us,” Vasturia said of his performance. “Having the confidence from coach and our older guys telling me to attack the rim, if I see an opening I’m going to try to make it. Just making the right basketball plays. So, tonight I was able to get to the rim a little bit.”
Grant put away the final layup with 18 seconds left to keep the Irish postseason alive.
“We did finally get great looks at crunch time,” Head Coach Mike Brey said following Saturday night’s overtime victory. “The game was a lot like games we’ve been in: Dog fights. We’re down. … I said fellas, we’ve done this before. They’ve been amazingly resilient. We’ve defended all five games of the postseason to get where we’re at.”
Butler’s Roosevelt Jones — who played through an injured knee — led all scorers with 23 points while Andrew Chrabascz put away 20.
“They are obviously hard to play against and I think we were able to do some things and we had the game where we wanted it,” Butler head coach Chris Holtmann said. “We just weren’t able to make enough plays there late. I thought our guys really fought and I give Notre Dame a lot of credit for pulling this one out.
Despite the game going to overtime, Butler never led in the extra minutes after missing two chances to win in the closing seconds of regulation.
Notre Dame will head to Cleveland later this week to face either No. 2 Kansas or No. 7 Wichita State in the Sweet 16 match up.
