March 28--CLEVELAND -- There's a line in Notre Dame's fight song that says, "What though the odds be great or small, old Notre Dame will win over all."
Irish coach Mike Brey knows how small the odds are headed into his team's Elite Eight showdown against No. 1 seed Kentucky. Asked how his team feels being the underdog in Saturday's Midwest Region final, Brey displayed a knowledge of the betting lines that might impress a bookie.
"Weren't we two-point underdogs to Wichita State (on Thursday)?" Brey said in a voice that was relying on cough drops to get through the day. "That's kind of driven this crew the whole year. They love it. They relish it. Maybe it helps us play loose and attack more. If that's the case, I love being 12-point underdogs (against Kentucky)."
Technically the Irish are now 11-point underdogs, but usually coaches pretend betting lines don't exist. Instead, Brey is using it as motivation for his team against the Wildcats, an undefeated juggernaut that looks less like stars and more like Monstars sent from another planet to conquer the college basketball world.
Notre Dame doesn't have Michael Jordan to help it out. But it does have one of the best offenses in the country, one unlike any Kentucky has faced this season.
And the Irish have a bit of a history of playing spoiler, stopping UCLA's 88-game winning streak in 1974 and knocking off undefeated San Francisco in 1977.
The Irish have talked all season about wanting to make history, and they have. They've won the program's first conference tournament title and reached the Elite Eight for the first time since 1979.
But a win Saturday to reach the school's second Final Four might qualify as the greatest in the history of the program.
"Coach Brey talked to the group last night about having moments that you remember throughout your life, that you can reflect on," assistant coach Martin Ingelsby said. "I just think this team is ready to do something special."
Guard Demetrius Jackson added: "When you play hard and do the right things and you stick together, it all kind of falls in line. We don't want to rely on history. We want to create our own history, play as hard as we can and whatever happens, happens."
After defeating Wichita State, the Irish watched from the stands as Kentucky demolished West Virginia 78-39, but the bludgeoning didn't affect the Irish's outlook on Saturday's game. They have relished the underdog role and seem more comfortable with it.
Brey admitted his team played tighter than normal when it was expected to win its first two tournament games last week in Pittsburgh. Senior captain Pat Connaughton said the Irish have an "inner confidence" that's unbreakable.
"I don't think you can go into a game not believing you can win a game, especially when you're in the Elite Eight, especially when you've gotten this far beating some of the teams you've beaten," Connaughton said. "You can't go into the game thinking there's a very difficult chance of us winning. You have to go in with full faith that you're going to win."
But Kentucky has that too. The Wildcats have entered every game knowing the opponent was extra fired up to be the first to beat the unbeaten. Kentucky has brushed off each one the way its big men swat shots around the rim.
"You have to match (the opponent's) intensity," forward Willie Cauley-Stein said. "They're coming into the game amped up, and you have to match their intensity (and) effort.
"We have better players. You match their effort, then your talent is going to take over."
The armchair analysis says a team must get hot from 3-point range to defeat the Wildcats. But Kentucky knows this and has worked to prevent it. The Wildcats own the nation's most efficient defense, according to kenpom.com, and are also No. 1 in 3-point defense.
"We made it a team norm to not give up 3s, and we're going to chase guys off the 3-point line, make them drive into our bigs and try to make 2-point shots," Cauley-Stein said.
But Kentucky hasn't faced an offense like Notre Dame's, which has the ability to lay waste to opponents with eye-popping scoring runs, such as a 75 percent field-goal shooting outburst in the second half against Wichita State. The highest-ranked offense the Wildcats have faced was No. 20 Vanderbilt, which lost 65-57 at Kentucky in January.
The Irish also boasted that they're more battle-tested than the Wildcats, especially after beating Duke and North Carolina twice each this season.
"When you're set as the underdog, especially when you've accomplished as much as our team's accomplished, it only fuels the fire," Connaughton said.
But there is definite acknowledgement of the Goliath in the room.
"If we don't play hard, we're going to get killed," Jackson said.
The odds certainly point to that, but like the fight song, it's a familiar refrain the Irish are used to hearing.
chine@tribune.com
