While you can occasionally have transcendent, unstoppable efforts in other team sports, the result of a basketball game is considerably more susceptible to the will of one or two players.  Over the last two games, the Irish were in tough battles attempting to protect their home floor, when Luke Harangody (twice) and Tory Jackson made the decision that they were not going to allow their team to lose.  On Monday night against Georgetown, tagged with a horrendous fourth foul, Harangody slipped around, shot over and banged through any defender the Hoyas threw at him.  Against Seton Hall, a team employing a flurry of guards knocking down every manner of ridiculous shots, Tory! Tory! Tory! inched near a triple double, collecting seven boards (four offensive, the most on the team by someone not the reigning Big East Player of the Year), going six-of-six from the line, stroking jumpers and dropping eight dimes.  Harangody threw up a yawner of 30 and 16, supplementing a poor shooting night (8-of-24 from the field) by knocking down fourteen of his sixteen free throws.

Mike Brey needs to get more from his bench, although Luke Zeller might be returning to his early season form.  Perhaps there needs to be more zone played, and perhaps there needs to be a few wrinkles added to the offense to help free Kyle McAlarney from the nonstop attention he draws from the moment he crosses halfcourt, but this team is pretty much what we thought it would be.  The offense is generally sensational while the defense struggles to stop guards, especially those that have considerable height advantages over K-Mac and Tory (which is pretty much anyone not named AJ Abrams).  With the regular season halfway over, the Irish are in the area of a four seed, with two top-tier wins (Texas and Georgetown) and one loss that hopefully doesn't appear as bad at the end of the season (St. John's, but it probably will).

But the past fifteen games don't mean anything if the Irish can't survive over the next month, a hellacious thirty days only teams in the 2009 Big East could possibly run up against.  Eight games, seven of them against ranked teams, with almost all of those opponents considered Final Four threats at some point over the last few weeks.  A trip to face the number one team in the country?  A flight out west to take on a team that has been to three straight national semifinals?  A host of NBA lottery picks?  The Irish will be seeing it all over the course of the next month.  Let's take a quick little trip through the gauntlet.

January 12 - at Louisville (11-3, 2-0 Big East) - The Cardinals had some difficulty in their non-conference slate, but seem to be getting things together as they enter conference play.  Fewer teams have more talented frontlines (Earl Clark, Terrence Williams, Samardo Samuels), but their guard play has been inconsistent, highlighted by Edgar Sosa, who oscillates from hero to heel as the season goes on.  The Pitino Pressure is going to be a nightmare in Freedom Hall tonight, as an Irish team that has trouble dealing with late-game pressure will have to deal with forty minutes of hell.  Last season both McAlarney and Jackson struggled in the trip down to Derby country (ten points, ten turnovers combined), so they will need to significantly improve if the Irish want to pull out the victory.

January 17 - at Syracuse (16-1, 4-0 Big East) - A tremendously fun team to watch that the Irish have had some success with the last couple years, Syracuse is a buzzer-beater by Cleveland State away from perfection.  They have a big-time presence at every level (Jonny Flynn at point guard, Paul Harris at forward, Arinze Onuaku in the paint), a legendary coach and a possible felon playing at shooting guard.  They'll probably be forced out of the traditional 2-3 zone against the Irish, unless they learned nothing from K-Mac's record-setting performance against them last season.

January 24 - Connecticut (14-1, 3-1 Big East) -  The Irish get a week off to prepare for College Gameday coming to South Bend.  The Huskies are loaded with potential NBA talent, starting in the middle with Hasheem Thabeet, and spreading out to forward Jeff Adrien and guards both young (Kemba Walker) and old (A.J. Price, Jerome Dyson).  Last year, the Irish won their home game against UConn in a game where Harangody was dominated by Thabeet.  In the rematch, Harangody destroyed Thabeet, but a stretch of cold-shooting late cost Notre Dame the game.  It will be an absolutely raucous atmosphere in the Joyce Center, and after Thabeet's totally unprovoked preseason trash talk of Harangody, you can bet the big guy will be gunning for the top of the mountain.

January 26 - Marquette (15-2, 4-0 Big East) - Simply the worst team in the conference for Notre Dame in regards to match-ups.  They have so many large, capable guards that the undersized Irish backcourt has fits attempting to stop the slash-and-kick.  The Irish won at home against the Eagles but were dominated in Milwaukee and the Garden.  Thankfully this game is in the friendly confines, but the Irish big men and crowd will have to control this game if Notre Dame wants to come out with a W.

January 31 - at Pittsburgh (15-0, 3-0 Big East) - It's tough to tell whether Pitt will still be the number one team in the country at this point, but I can tell you that the Petersen Event Center is going to be rocking at high noon when the Irish come to town (if only because the demand for tickets is absurdly high).  The Irish knocked off the Panthers at home last season in a Thursday night classic, but DeJuan Blair is a year wiser, Levance Fields is healthy and Sam Young is one of the biggest challengers to Harangody's Player of the Year award.  The Notre Dame game culminates a tough stretch for the Panthers (at Louisville, Syracuse, at West Virginia, at Villanova), so you're going to have two tested teams slugging it out in their lone regular season match-up.

February 4 - at Cincinnati (10-6, 0-3 Big East) - This is the slightest of slight breathers in the murderer's row, going on the road against a team that's been close to knocking off the last few visitors to the Queen City (Providence and Connecticut both had to fight to get out with a win).  Deonta Vaughn and Yancy Gates are a tremendous inside-outside combo, and this is only easy when compared to the games preceding and following it.

February 7 - at UCLA (12-2, 2-0 PAC-10) - Since suffering early season losses to Michigan and Texas, the Bruins have entered league play on a nice little roll.  A lot of the talent from last year's Final Four loser is back, plus all-world recruit Jrue Holiday has been added to the fold.  Due to philosophical differences with Ben Howland (Short version: I've hated his style of play since he started winning in Pittsburgh and loathe his ability to take talented guards and shove them in an offense that makes you want to stab your eyes out), I'll be writing about this game a lot leading up to it.  While this is obviously not a league game, I think I might want to win it more than any of the others, simply to show that you can play basketball that's beautiful and effective.

February 12 - Louisville - The Irish end the month of hell as they started it, taking on Slick Rick's Cardinals, this time on their own turf.  Last time Louisville played in South Bend was at the start of the 2007 Big East schedule, where Tory Jackson and Luke Harangody made their conference debuts with a win on the same night Brady Quinn played his last game in a Fighting Irish uniform.

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Eight opportunities for quality wins.  Eight opportunities to test your mettle against the best in the country.  As a basketball fan and as an Irish fan, you can't ask for a whole lot more before the calendar strikes March.

[Bonus Big East Nugget: Look out for Providence College when it comes to locking up one of those top seeds for the Big East tournament.  Keno Davis has some talent to work with, and the schedule is favorable.  The three teams the Friars face twice are very manageable - Rutgers, Villanova, Cincinnati - and they get Marquette, Syracuse, Notre Dame and Pitt all in the Dunkin' Donuts Center.]