SOUTH BEND, Ind. – After shooting 11-of-20 from the three-point range against Eastern Illinois, the NIU basketball team shot 4-of-17 against Notre Dame on Monday night.

Despite that fact, NIU pulled within 66-60 in the second half before eventually falling to No. 19 Notre Dame 74-65 in front of 10,774 at the Joyce Center.

“They’ve got a lot of threats and great balance at every position,” NIU coach Rob Judson said. “We’ve got a good three-point shooting team, but if we could have gotten a couple more to drop, it would have been a little closer game.”

NIU (1-1) fell behind early when Notre Dame (1-0) made good on its first three field goals and added three free throws to take a 10-0 lead.

NIU was able to pull within 18-17 on a layup by freshman Ryan Paradise. However, the Fighting Irish outscored the Huskies 26-9 to to take a 44-28 lead into halftime.

NIU forward Marcus Smallwood had 12 points and eight rebounds at the half, but was just 5-of-15 from the floor.

As the second half began, it looked like more of the same as Notre Dame outscored the Huskies 11-3 in the opening minutes of the half to extend its lead to 55-31.

With just under 10 minutes to play, the Huskies slowly began working their way back into the game.

After Torin Francis connected on a foul shot to make the score 59-42, NIU outscored Notre Dame 15-6, culminating with a Perry Smith layup on a pass from Johnathan Byrd to bring the score to 65-57. The Huskies were able to pull within 66-60 at the 1:35 mark after sophomore guard Anthony Maestranzi made a three-pointer from the top of the key.

Notre Dame was able to make its foul shots from that point, sealing the victory for the home team.

All-American candidate junior point guard Chris Thomas finished with 17 points on 5-of-17 shooting.

Smallwood finished with a team-high 21 points and 18 rebounds.

“I think we’ve found how good of a team we really are,” Maestranzi said. “When we go play in the MAC, I think this will help us down the road.”