Saturday, December 20, 2008

Delaware State Preview vs. #12 Ranked Notre Dame

Final exams are over and the Notre Dame student body has gone home for the holidays, but the Irish basketball team still has a couple of tests before it can head home for Christmas. Notre Dame (7-2) entertains Delaware State (2-12) at 7 p.m. tonight at the Joyce Center. Tonight’s game against the Hornets will be followed by a home date on Monday evening with Savannah State before the Irish players leave campus for break.

Notre Dame is currently ranked 12th in the Associated Press Poll and 14th in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches’ Poll, but have a great chance to move up in both with a strong showing on Saturday. Delaware State, of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, has played an extremely difficult non-conference schedule and has suffered losses at Ohio State, Kentucky and Maryland along with Big East defeats to West Virginia, Connecticut and Rutgers. Notre Dame head coach Brey said that he respects what Delaware State is doing with its non-conference schedule and believes that it will help them down the road.

“I understand what they’re trying to do here in the non-conference,” said Brey. “That’s a grueling thing to do, they’ve done a pretty good job of that and the one thing they’ve got is really tough kids. I know that from talking to people in their league, they’ve got tough kids and probably going through this toughens them up.” The Hornets opened the season with a victory over Division II Wilmington and won its MEAC opener against Maryland-Eastern Shore on Dec. 4, but have lost every other game. Delaware State is 0-9 on the road this season.

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