Markus Burton tallied 21 points, six rebounds, five assists and three steals and Notre Dame nearly blew a 19-point lead before hanging on to beat Rutgers 68-63 at the Players Era men’s tournament Tuesday in Las Vegas.
Jalen Haralson scored 15 points and Braeden Shrewsberry 13 as the Fighting Irish (5-2) survived nine second-half turnovers that fueled their opponent’s comeback hopes.
Jamichael Davis scored a career-high 21 points, Dylan Grant had 15 with seven rebounds and Tariq Francis added 10 points for Rutgers (4-3), which dropped its third straight overall and is 1-4 in Players Era games dating back to last season.
Rutgers made 11 of 27 3-point attempts, including 7 of 15 in the second half, to make a seemingly one-sided game interesting. But Notre Dame outshot Rutgers 49.1% to 39.2% from the field.
Seven of Notre Dame’s 16 turnovers came in the final 10 minutes of the game, giving Rutgers new life down the stretch. Denis Badalau tossed a cross-court pass to Davis for a corner 3 that brought the Scarlet Knights within 60-56 with 5:56 left.
Notre Dame scored the next seven points, with back-to-back layups by Burton briefly restoring a double-digit lead with 2:53 to go.
Francis drew a foul from Burton while hoisting a 3-pointer and made all three free throws. Later, Rutgers forced a five-second violation in a Notre Dame inbounds situation, and Francis capitalized with a turnaround jumper to cut it to 68-63 with 47 seconds left.
Notre Dame missed the front end of a 1-and-1, but the Scarlet Knights failed to connect on their last three attempts from the field.
Rutgers made three early 3-pointers, the latter two by Grant, to forge a 9-9 tie. It was all Notre Dame for the next 10-plus minutes, an extended 22-4 run.
Shrewsberry opened the stretch with consecutive 3-pointers, and Haralson and Burton added a dunk and a triple in transition. It was 31-13 Irish by the end of the run and 36-17 after Shrewsberry’s third triple with 2:26 to play.
The Scarlet Knights whittled together a 7-0 run to close the second half. Bryce Dortch swiped a pass in the dying seconds and Davis followed Dortch’s missed layup with a putback that beat the buzzer, making it 36-24.
Davis had two 3-pointers to help Rutgers claw within 40-35 early in the second half, but Sir Mohammed immediately answered the latter three with a driving layup. Shortly after, Notre Dame used an 8-0 spurt to restore its lead to 50-37 with 14:04 left.
