MEN’S HOOPS PREVIEW Hoyas Prepare To Fight Irish By Tom Kenny Hoya Staff Writer

Charles Nailen/The Hoya Senior point guard Kevin Braswell drives against Pittsburgh. He will start against Notre Dame tomorrow.

There is possibly no better example of a “bubble game” than tomorrow’s matchup between Georgetown and Notre Dame at MCI Center. Both squads sit squarely on the proverbial bubble in terms of receiving a bid for the NCAA Tournament. Each team has had an inconsistent season with several quality wins and several bad losses. In almost every bracket prediction from the so-called experts, the Hoyas and the Fighting Irish are placed either among the last four teams to make the tournament or with the last four teams to fall short.

As the season winds down, every game is crucial for a team on the bubble, but games between two teams in that position take on added significance. On selection Sunday, the committee could face a choice between taking either Georgetown or Notre Dame, and the teams’ respective records will most likely be very similar. Head-to-head competition, as it is in any sport, will be a crucial tiebreaker. The Hoyas already hold an advantage in this regard, having won the first meeting between the two teams 83-73 on Jan. 21 at Notre Dame. A second win would give the Hoyas a decisive advantage come tournament time.

When the Fighting Irish lost to the Hoyas at home three weeks ago, their NCAA hopes looked bleak. They had dropped three straight games and had fallen below .500 in Big East Play. Since the Georgetown game though, they have come back, going 4-0 with wins over nationally-ranked Pittsburgh on Jan. 30 and a resurgent Rutgers squad on Wednesday night in South Bend. Their record now stands at 16-6 overall and 6-3 in the Big East Conference. They are just a half game out of first place in the Big East West Division and a full game ahead of the Hoyas, who are 5-4 in the Big East and 14-7 overall.

The most noteworthy player for the Fighting Irish this year has been freshman guard Chris Thomas. Thomas was the first Mr. Basketball, the award given to the best player in the state of Indiana, to ever attend Notre Dame and has lived up to his high billing so far this year. He has been selected Big East Rookie of the Week four times this year, including last week. He scored a career-high 32 points in Wednesday’s win over Rutgers and has averaged almost 16 points and seven assists a game. He is first among all Big East freshmen in scoring and leads all Big East players in assists per game. The Hoyas did a good job of containing him in the first meeting, holding him to 13 points on 5-13 shooting from the field, and will need to do so again Saturday.

While he does not receive the same attention as Thomas, senior forward Ryan Humphrey has probably been the Irish’s best player during the course of the season. He leads the team in scoring with an average of 18.5 points a game, sixth overall in the Big East. His average of 9.6 rebounds per game is third overall in the Big East, behind only Georgetown sophomore forward Mike Sweetney and Rutgers senior center Rashod Kent, who are tied for first with an average of 9.8 boards per game. The matchup between Humphrey and Sweetney will be a key one on Saturday. In the first meeting, Sweetney out-scored Humphrey only 21-19 but outrebounded him by margin of 16-11.

The Hoyas’ 51-35 edge in rebounding in the first game this season was certainly a major factor in their victory. However, in that game, the Fighting Irish were playing without senior forward Harold Swanagan, who was out with a left ankle sprain. Swanagan is second on the team in rebounds with an average of seven boards a game and he was sorely missed on Jan. 21. With Swanagan in the game tomorrow, the Hoyas will have to work even harder in order to dominate the boards as they did in the first meeting.

Another factor in the Hoyas’ victory earlier this year was their outside shooting. They shot 7-17 from beyond the arc, including three three-pointers from senior guard Kevin Braswell. Several second half three-pointers helped the Hoyas deflate Notre Dame’s attempts to get back in the game. Tomorrow, they will most likely need senior point guard Kevin Braswell, freshman guard Tony Bethel or sophomore swingman Gerald Riley, coming off a career game in Saturday’s victory over West Virginia, to contribute from the perimeter.

While the Hoyas were effective from three-point range, the Irish shot only 4-21, well below their season average. It was one of only three games all season that Thomas did not hit a single three-pointer, going 0-4. Notre Dame is second overall in the Big East in three-point shooting, so limiting Notre Dame’s ability to score from long distance as they did in the first meeting would greatly aid the Hoyas tomorrow.

Though tomorrow’s game is at MCI Center, the home crowd will probably not be much help to Georgetown if recent history between the two teams is any guide. The Hoyas have won the last three games in South Bend while Notre Dame has won two in a row at CI Center. Also, Notre Dame has played well away from home all season, compiling a 6-2 road record, including a win at Pittsburgh, while the Hoyas have already dropped three home games this year. Georgetown leads the overall series between the schools 8-5 and has won seven out of 10 games since Notre Dame joined the Big East in 1995.

Tomorrow’s game marks a fork in the road for Georgetown’s 2001-02 season. A win will solidify their NCAA Tournament hopes significantly. A loss would make their pursuit of an NCAA at-large bid all the more difficult, if not impossible.