When the Notre Dame men’s basketball team looks back on this season, they can be proud of playing against No. 6 Houston. While it came in a 65-54 loss at the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas, it was a testament to the Irish’s ability to respond to adversity.

Markus Burton was ruled out indefinitely after sustaining a knee injury earlier in the day. But that didn’t mean the Irish (4-3) simply failed against the Cougars (4-2). In fact, their biggest deficit came towards the end of the game, showing that they were in it almost the entire time.

The problem for the Irish was that they shot 38.8% from the floor while only making 19 field goals. At times in the second half more than eight minutes passed between field goals. It didn’t help that the Cougars used their stifling defense to score 11 points off 12 Irish turnovers.

Emanuel Sharp led the Cougars with 17 points. Milos Uzan scored 10 points and finished with a double-double with one assist.

Terrance Arceneaux had 13 points on 6-of-7 shooting off the bench. That alone was a far better performance than the entire Irish bench, which was down as a whole in this game and missed all three field goal attempts.

Tae Davis led all scorers with 22 points and had a game-high eight rebounds. Although Braeden Shrewsberry scored 16 points, he shot 4 of 13 from 3-point range, perhaps a sign that he is trying to make up for Burton’s absence.

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This article originally appeared on Fighting Irish Wire: Notre Dame men’s basketball was derailed by poor shooting in loss to Houston