Markus Burton, Notre Dame aim to pick on skidding Miami

Markus Burton and Notre Dame hope to keep their hot streaks going against Miami on Saturday in Coral Gables. Fla.

The Fighting Irish (10-10, 4-5 Atlantic Coast Conference) are coming off a 71-68 home win against Georgia Tech on Tuesday, when Burton scored a game-high 26 points. He hit 9 of 17 shots from the field, including 4 of 5 from the 3-point arc.

Burton has been coming on strong after missing all of December with a right knee injury. He is contributing 20.4 points per game on the season, but over the past three games, he has averaged 25.

“He’s fun to coach, because he has great energy and he gives off great energy to his teammates,” Notre Dame coach Micah Shrewsberry said. “He’s learning how people are guarding him, what the situation is, what it calls for, and you can see him start to read the game, start to read defenses, set himself up, setting his teammates up, and he’s doing it all efficiently right now.”

Notre Dame has won three of four, and it is one game into a five-game run of matchups against sub-.500 ACC teams.

Miami (4-17, 0-10) took an 82-71 home loss to Virginia on Wednesday to remain winless in conference play. Matthew Cleveland led the Hurricanes with 27 points on 10-of-17 shooting from the field, but he was 0-for-4 from 3-point range.

“Obviously, a very disappointing loss for us,” Miami interim coach Bill Courtney said. “Same problem for us on the defensive end we’ve had several times, couldn’t get key stops. We scored enough to win the game against a very good defensive team.”

The Fighting Irish may be licking their chops over their immediate schedule, but Shrewsberry is determined to keep it simple for his players.

“I told our guys after we won (Tuesday), our next game on Saturday is our Super Bowl,” he said. “Every single game is for us, whatever is right in front of us, I think we have to focus on that. I think we can be a good team, but we’re still a young team.”

–Field Level Media