It has been a challenging season for the Notre Dame Fightin’ Irish with injuries hitting the team throughout the season. The Irish were without senior starters Matt Farrell and Bonzie Colson, two ACC all-league caliber players for a significant stretch of the season.

Now Farrell and Colson are back and the Irish are trying to make a run in the ACC tournament to propel them in the eyes of the tournament committee.

Notre Dame opens the ACC tourney with Pitt, the same Panther team that went winless during ACC play in the regular season. Pitt has gone full youth movement with their starting lineup featuring mostly freshmen. For Pitt, the stakes are high as well but for a different reason. There is pressure on Pitt head coach Kevin Stallings, who is rumored to be fired if Pitt should lose today’s match-up.

The first half of play is dominated by Notre Dame. Farrell and Colson combine for 19 points to push the Irish advantage to 36-24 at intermission.

The winner of this game will face NCAA tournament-bound Virginia Tech at 7pm tomorrow.

For this veteran-laden Notre Dame team a run in the ACC tournament to secure an NCAA tournament appearance would be a perfect way to cap the careers of Farrell, Geben and Colson.