Ominous Start to Pittsburgh’s Weekend

Notre Dame’s visit to Pittsburgh this afternoon is certainly the second most notable game for the Steel City this weekend, but on paper it looked like as much of a lock as the Super Bowl is being made out to be. The No. 3 Panthers have won more than a dozen straight at home, while the Irish have slid to the precipice of unranked. As such, that N.D. leads at the half might be worrisome.
↵
↵Notre Dame is up 45-39 on the back of 18 points from Luke Zeller, all those scores on three-pointers. In all, the Irish have 11 threes in 22 tries, a necessary boost considering how dominant the interior defense of DeJuan Blair has been. N.D. is shooting 4-of-13 on twos; Luke Harangody is only 3-of-11 with Blair pushing back. The Panther stud 11 points and 12 rebounds.
↵
↵Intuition says Blair’s beastliness is more sustainable than Zeller’s heat, but it’s not like Notre Dame lacks other shooters: Harangody might step outside more frequently, Kyle McAlarney could take over the trigger and the Pitt perimeter defense hasn’t really showed an ability to close on the gunners so far. In other words, Pitt faces the same situation the Steelers will on Sunday: there’s no doubt they can smash, but a lack of control over the deep game could spell doom. (Now if we could get Zeller to rock the Fitzgerald dreads ...)↵