Notre Dame looks for answers before facing Colgate

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- An early part of a college basketball season that had the making of something special for No. 25 Notre Dame has slipped sideways.

Nine days ago, Notre Dame was undefeated and rolling. Two games later, the Irish have lost consecutive games in December for the first time since 2003.

How will Notre Dame (9-2) respond from Saturday's 86-81 loss to No. 15 Purdue in the sixth-annual Crossroads Classic at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis? Seemingly rolling toward its 10th win, Notre Dame let a 17-point lead slip away with as sluggish a second half as the first was solid.

This after an 11-point lead evaporated the previous Saturday in an eight-point loss to top-ranked Villanova. Both second halves exposed the Irish interior defense. The other ranked teams simply were tougher, stronger and quicker to loose balls, to missed shots.

The Irish were outhustled and failed to grab a win when a win was there to grab.

There wasn't much fight to the Irish. A veteran team should be beyond the funks that saw two seniors -- two captains -- in V.J. Beachem and Steve Vasturia -- go scoreless in the second half Saturday.

The first nine games were rather stress-free and fun. That likely was not the case Sunday when the Irish worked their way through snow and wind outside for what promised to be an interesting afternoon inside heading into Monday's game against Colgate (2-9).

Notre Dame was not in a happy place following the Villanova loss. After Saturday, that mad meter moved further in the wrong direction.

"We're definitely even more (ticked) than we were after Villanova," said junior power forward Martinas Geben, who had one of his best games as a collegiate Saturday after going for a season-high nine points with six rebounds and a career-best three assists in a season-best 22 minutes. "We've shown that we can win tough games. Now we just need to execute down the stretch against other teams."

Time to look in the mirror. Maybe point a finger or two. It's bound to be a bit unpleasant the next two weeks as Notre Dame works toward the start of Atlantic Coast Conference play, closing quickly on New Year's Eve at Pittsburgh.

"Who are we going to be as a team?" wondered junior captain Bonzie Colson. "I'm tired of saying it's a learning experience, but we just gotta toughen up and battle a little bit more and see who we're going to be right now."

Right now, nobody really knows. The Irish don't. Coach Mike Brey doesn't. He wondered late Saturday afternoon back in Indianapolis what button might be the next to push.

How can a team that looked so good, so fluid, so together in the first halves of its two biggest games look so uncertain, so lost in the second half?

"We got comfortable at halftime, just like the Villanova game," said junior guard Matt Farrell, coming off career highs for points (22) and assists (10) for his first career double-double. "We can't get comfortable, man. You just gotta want it more.

"We've got to take people's hearts."

Notre Dame is 0-2 against ranked teams. Brey's fine with that -- for now.

"We're not in the league of the two high-level teams we've played," Brey admitted. "We've got a nice team. I love our team."

But ... "we're not in their league right now."