Taming the Bearcats

• Box Score

It won’t rate with a win over a Marquette, or even a DePaul for that matter. But at least for the moment, Notre Dame’s 76-64 win Sunday at Cincinnati becomes a very important step when it comes to postseason hopes for the Irish.

Cincinnati is the worst team in the Big East but a win over the Bearcats (10-16, 1-11) isn’t diminished by the quality of the opponent. Notre Dame (20-6, 8-5) moves into a tie for fourth place in the Big East and stays in position to earn one of the four byes in the Big East Tournament next month.

More importantly, the Irish won their second straight game and secured their second conference road win this season. It wasn’t a high-profile win but it was an important one nonetheless.

“I’m very proud of our group to come in and hold them off, which I felt we were going to have to do,” Brey said during his postgame radio show. “I felt we made some big shots at some key times when they put some game pressure on us.”

This game was really won by a good start for Notre Dame. Cincinnati never led but it never quit, constantly threatening the lead but never getting it because of Notre Dame’s quick start, Colin Falls, and improved bench play led by Ryan Ayers.

Ayers made all four of his three-point tries and scored a career-high 12 points to pace an Irish bench that scored 22 points. Ayers led a long-range onslaught for the Irish that the Bearcats couldn’t deal with. In fact, Ayers never flirted with hitting the rim.

“I always felt he was going to be a big-time shooter,” Brey said. “I think it’s starting to come home to roost in games now. He’s done this in practice but maybe not in games early this season.”

Many of the road problems for Notre Dame have stemmed from slow starts but the Irish avoided that by building a lead that reached double digits at 35-24, leveled off at 37-30 at the break, and never shrunk below four points in the second half.

Good three-point shooting, terrific balance and the contributions from some unexpected guys set the tone for the first half and the game.

Eight different Irish scored in the first half and five had at least five points. Among those were Ayers with six points, Jonathan Peoples with five and Tory Jackson with eight points.

When things finished, four Irish hit double-digits. Colin Falls paced the Irish with 23 points and hit five three pointers to set the Notre Dame career mark for three-pointers with 305, formerly held by Chris Thomas.

Luke Harangody added 11 points and Jackson finished with 10.

Jackson got things going quickly for Notre Dame with two three-pointers in the first two minutes to give the Irish an early lead it never surrendered in the game.

Notre Dame hit 6 of its first 7 three-point tries and 13 of 20 for the game.