NOTRE DAME, Ind. – It may be early in the BIG EAST season, but Saturday night’s 70-68 win over No. 8 West Virginia by the Notre Dame men’s basketball team at Purcell Pavilion is huge.

The Fighting Irish came into the game with a loss and can ill afford many more if they want to contend for the BIG EAST Conference championship this season. Protecting your home court will go a long away toward achieving that goal.

It looked as if the Irish (14-3, 3-1 BIG EAST) was going to blow out the Mountaineers, who came into the game with a 12-2 mark overall and were looking to start the conference campaign at 4-0 for the first time in school history.

Notre Dame built up a 21-point lead before West Virginia turned it into a game down the stretch.

The Fighting Irish led 45-25 at halftime, but the huge lead dwindled to 65-63 with 5:31 remaining after the Mountaineers canned their eighth 3-pointer of the second half.

A nine-minute dry spell for the Notre Dame offense and some extremely hot outside shooting by West Virginia tightened up the contest.

All-American Luke Harangody’s bucket with 4:08 remaining snapped the Irish scoreless streak and gave them a 69-66 advantage.

The two teams continued to slug it out over the next four minutes.

The Fighting Irish had a chance to build a four point advantage with less than 20 ticks remaining on the clock, but Ben Hansbrough’s shot came up short, which gave the Mountaineers one more chance to tie or win the game.

But West Virginia couldn’t get Da’Sean Butler’s last second shot to fall and Notre Dame had its first win over a top 10 team since the Irish defeated No. 9 Georgetown last year.

Harangody came up big once again for the Fighting Irish as he scored 24 points and grabbed five rebounds.

Notre Dame also got 17 points from Tim Abromaitis and 13 points from Ty Nash.
Kevin Jones scored 17 points to lead the Mountaineers, who also got 13 points from Butler and 11 points from Darryl Bryant.

The Fighting Irish shot 7-of-13 from 3-point range compared to 12-of-37 for West Virginia.

Notre Dame played without seventh man Carleton Scott, who took an indefinite leave of absence on Friday.

The Fighting Irish will now be off until Saturday when they travel to Cincinnati to take on the Bearcats.