Even though it was sort of obvious when you look back at  the season, Wednesday night's loss was Notre Dame's seventh straight road loss.  While the friendly confines of the JACC have lost their luster with UConn snapping the winning streak, I still wish the Irish were heading back there this weekend instead of to the Dunkin Donuts Center in Rhode Island.  We've been tossing around the term "Must win" a lot, but this one is really sort of necessary.  If Notre Dame earned a split of the WVU and Providence games, hold court at home (which would mean beating Villanova) and don't embarrass themselves against the Huskies, they'd be 9-9 in the toughest league in the country.  Is that enough to get the Irish into the Big Dance?  Not by a country mile, although it would make things interesting in the Garden.

In order to get the victory against a surprisingly competent Friars team, the Irish will have to put forth a much better effort than they did in Morgantown last night.  I was gentle in the aftermath, but an adequate effort on the boards would have meant a lot last night.  In that same vein, a smarter effort on defense would have helped as well.  I understand when superior athletes do athletic things, but there's no reason to repeatedly sag off of Alex Ruoff when he's a forty percent three point shooter.  There's no reason to not block out or make the extra pass.

The other problem with the Irish defense is that the team is almost too willing to help out. Extra defenders go running towards guys who don't need double teamed at that position on the floor, leaving others wide open, getting caught in space and compromising already poor rotations.  As the great John Wooden says, "Never mistake activity for achievement," a creed Mike Brey woudl be wise to relay to his squad.

There were obviously other problems.  Tory Jackson played 34 minutes without recording an assist (not good for your point guard) or a rebound (extremely unusual for Tory).  Coach Brey limited Ty Nash's minutes when he'd been having a fantastic effect on anchoring the paint on both ends of the floor.  Kudos to the Mountaineers, but the early lead the Irish accumulated showed they were more than capable of pulling out a big road W.

Another huge one at Providence Saturday, tipping off at high noon.

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The biggest shame about the Irish's slippage this season is that a truly great season from Luke Harangody is probably not going to be recognized.  I imagine that Blake Griffin is going to get the majority of the National Player of the Year attention (justifiably so), while the Big East voters look towards the top of the standings at DeJuan Blair and Hasheem Thabeet, with Jerel McNeal having a legitimate chance depending on how Marquette closes out the season.  Considering making First Team All-Big East is delegitimized with the fact three dozen names are on that list, it'll be tough for Harangody to truly get an award that recognizes the fantastic season he's having.

Does he get onto an All-American team?  Perhaps.  If Notre Dame goes on a run that includes Harangody handling Thabeet, maybe he can slip into the conversation for one of the forward spots.  If they have two forwards and a center, Griffin's there, and then it's 'Gody battling with Tyler Hansbrough (who wasn't getting a lot of hype, although Brent and Bobby were talking him up during the Duke/St. John's) and his Big East counterparts.  People point to the seven game losing streak, but anyone who watched any of those games - save for UCLA - knows it was not Harangody's fault.

This section has absolutely no point other than the fact I'm disappointed a really great season is going to go unnoticed by the national media.  This is not particularly surprising, but it's still disappointing.

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Somewhat exciting news on the technological front, as Rakes is now on Twitter.  I've never understood Twitter, saying as recently as last week I was not involved and gladly so, but David Pogue's features on it in the time Times and some discussions among other SBNers led me to believe it's a worthwhile endeavor.  (Actually, the most important part was the fact the SBN tech support - the very best around - said they'd do all the work.  This is important in every aspect of my life.)  I'm not sure how this will turn out, but all of our posts will automatically show up there, so if you're on Twitter, check us out to follow all the latest Rakes posts.