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Notre Dame bounces back to beat Georgetown

Jan 6, 2009 - 6:54 AM SOUTH BEND, Indiana (Ticker) -- Luke Harangody scored 31 points to lead 13th-ranked Notre Dame to a 73-67 victory over No. 10 Georgetown on Monday night.

Notre Dame (11-3, 2-1 Big East) was coming off a 71-65 loss at St. John's on Saturday, but received a big performance from Harangody and some improved outside shooting to knock off Georgetown in yet another contest involving ranked Big East Conference teams.

The Fighting Irish, who went 4-of-17 from the arc on Saturday, hit 8-of-21 on Monday - including five by Kyle McAlarney, who finished with 17 points.

"Big bounce back win tonight," Notre Dame coach Mike Brey said. "It is all about how you recover after a few tough games in this league. Whoever does that best will get the NCAA bids and the byes in New York City (for the BIG EAST tournament).

"I thought we bounced back tonight. I thought our defense played well and was patient. We were smart defensively and we got the loose balls in the paint which is something we didn't do Saturday. We were smart offensively, getting the ball to the right people at the right times. It's great to be 2-1 in the league and it will be nice to get some rest before this weekend."

Freshman Greg Monroe led the Hoyas with 21 points and 10 rebounds.

Georgetown (10-3, 1-2) has now lost two straight since a victory at then-No. 2 Connecticut last Monday.

Harangody scored 19 of his points in the first half to help the Irish open up a 39-28 lead. But the Hoyas wouldn't go away and were within four after a 7-0 run to start the second half.

Things looked to really be going Georgetown's way when Harangody picked up his fourth foul on a questionable charge call with 15:17 to play.

The Irish led 44-38 when Harangody went to the bench and were up 49-44 when he returned about four minutes later.

"It's me being a veteran player now and being able to realize there's some things that I cannot do when I'm in foul trouble," Harangody said. "I wish the play would have been more under control. The decision on my fourth foul probably wasn't the best. Luckily I didn't get in more foul trouble from there on out."

Ryan Ayers scored all five points for Notre Dame when Harangody was on the bench on a 3-pointer and a jumper.

"Everybody just calmed down," Ayers said. "We're such a mature team that we all know how to play and feed off each other, so when Luke went out, we were able to calm ourselves down, go out and do some positive things."

The Hoyas closed to 71-67 with 15 seconds left on a basket in the lane by Chris Wright, but McAlarney made two free throws with 12 seconds left to ice the game.

"From foul shots on down, the ball just didn't go in the basket tonight so we have to get stops and we have to get rebounds and we have to make things more difficult for them," Coach Georgetown coach John Thompson III said. "They did a good job of guarding us and of contesting shots, I don't want to put it as if we got all the shots and missed, they did a very good job of closing out and making a lot of our shots misses."

With the win Notre Dame extended the nation's longest home winning streak to 44 games, including 19 in Big East play, one shy of the conference record set by Pittsburgh in 2004.

"They are comfortable in this building," Brey said. "It is almost therapy in this building and they really believe in this building and that will be fine with me if they keep using it like that."