Notre Dame Can Boost NCAA Hopes Tonight With Win Over Villanova!

Notre Dame can keep its dim hopes of reaching The Dance alive tonight with a win over Big East opponent Villanova.

The Irish have the Wildcats right where they want them—at home, where winning for the Notre Dame is as common as winter in South Bend lasting till May.

can an upset in the tonight's nationally televised game turn a season around? Can it overcome the fact that the 16-12 Irish have an RPI just under 70?

Yes, Yes, and Yes!

Of course, the Irish will have to win against lowly St. John's in the regular season finale and will probably have to reach the semis in the conference tournament to make this happen.

If the Irish win their last two regular season games they'll finish 9-9 in the conference and that would be considered acceptable by the selection committee because they play in the Big East.

Winning against St. John's—another home game for the Irish—shouldn't be a problem, but getting to the conference semis in a league regarded as the  second-best in the country (the NBA is still the best) will be extremely tough, but not out of the question.

Too many things went wrong for the Irish in a 2008-2009 season where expectations were extremely high, and Notre Dame's early-season top-10 ranking indicated the pollsters were just as confident as the players and coaches.

A non-conference win over Texas—another team that was highly ranked but also disappointed—was overshadowed by non-conference losses to North Carolina and Ohio State.

Solid wins against conference rivals Georgetown, Louisville and Providence were impressive highlights, but a horrible seven-game losing streak might be considered the low light of the season if they don't finish strong.

And let me repeat!  An RPI in the high sixties...that's not "tournament friendly".

Can the Irish pull off an eleventh-hour rescue to their season?  Can they turn dust into gold?

If Luke Harangody, a sure-fire first team All-American, can reach down deep one more time and lead the Irish to the upset tonight, once again the answer to these questions has to be "yes".

The Irish must win their two final conference games and get to the semis of the Big East Tournament.

If they can beat Villanova and St. Johns, they'll complete the regular season on a nice 6-3--something the selection committee likes to see and if they can couple this with reaching the semis in the Big East Tournament, they will probably get their win total up to twenty games.

Twenty wins is generally the prerequisite for a NCAA bid and even if they get there, they still might have to put up with another obstacle if the selection committee doesn't feel comfortable about giving invites to too many teams from the same conference, but that's out of the Notre Dame's hands.

As it stands now, it looks like the Irish still control their own destiny and can play their way into the Dance. 

If they lose tonight they'll still go dancing.....they'll do a slow morbid shuffle into the NIT.