Is Notre Dame a Threat to Make a Deep NCAA Tournament Run?

Flaws. We've all got them. Notre Dame does too, and they might keep the Fighting Irish from making a big splash in the NCAA tournament.

Or those defects could become mostly irrelevant, just like they've been much of this season; the many positives have been able to outweigh the few negatives that have surfaced during this breakout year for Notre Dame.

In Wednesday's 71-59 win at Louisville, we saw both the good and the bad of the 2014-15 Fighting Irish. It wasn't a perfect game, as a very solid first half was quickly forgotten when the Irish squandered an 11-point lead in less than three-and-a-half minutes. The shooting was good, but not great, and rebounding will continue to be an issue for a team with only one regular over 6'8" and nobody you could even begin to call a big man.

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Notre Dame is one of those teams that looks like it's having a great year but is one misstep from having it all come apart. We've been waiting for this all season, and results like last week's home loss to Syracuse put up major red flags, but somehow the Irish have kept it together and could be a legitimate contender to make a deep run in March.

"For us, we talked about this being another resume win for our NCAA tournament resume," Notre Dame coach Mike Brey said in the postgame press conference, per the Louisville Courier-Journal. "I'm glad our guys responded to that."

"Respond" could be the team slogan for this year's Irish, which is made up of a number of spare parts from last year's 15-17 team, the only one in Brey's 15-year tenure to finish below .500. That group couldn't recover after Jerian Grant was lost in December to an academic suspension, yet everything that's been thrown Notre Dame's way this season has been pushed aside without a second thought.

Another academic issue popped up this year when junior forward Zach Auguste had to sit out a game just before the start of the spring semester. Rather than have his absence cause a problem, it actually created an opportunity for freshman Bonzie Colson to emerge as Notre Dame's top bench option.

The 6'5" forward—who Brey referred to as a "big" on Wednesday—has scored 49 points in his last three games, including a career-best 17 in 26 minutes against Louisville. With Auguste down early because of foul trouble, Colson stepped right in without a hitch and made all seven field goals; he also pulled down nine rebounds, including two of the team's three offensive boards.

Colson was a DNP in six of his first 17 games, but since then he's made 39 of 59 shots and recorded 13 blocks in 13 games.

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"Bonzie Colson just keeps climbing the ladder," Brey said, per the Louisville Courier-Journal. "He's been able to deliver like this because his attitude was so good the first half of the season even when he wasn't playing. And he's energized the rest of our players. They love having him in there."

Colson has also provided Notre Dame with yet another go-to player, now making it almost a six-headed attack that doesn't suffer when one or two guys struggle. Besides Auguste's foul issues, Grant and Pat Connaughton struggled with their shots, though Grant still contributed with seven assists. Yet the effort of Colson and sophomore guard Demetrius Jackson (21 points and four steals) made those off nights a non-issue.

Jackson had a bounce-back game from a poor outing last time out against Syracuse, when he was 1-of-5 and scored two points. Not surprisingly, Brey noted that he "responded well" to the previous performance.

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Notre Dame remains one of the top shooting teams in the country at 50.8 percent entering Wednesday. It's trending upward following a 53.5 percent effort against Louisville. The offense isn't as crisp and fluid as it was during the first two months, and it now seems to come and go far too often—the Irish went without a field goal for the first 9:25 of the second half. That said, this has rarely led to prolonged struggles that couldn't be overcome.

The Irish managed to only trail by one despite that scoring slump but then made nine of 10 shots to end the game.

Now with nine wins away from home (and a very impressive 7-2 road record in ACC play), Notre Dame is showing the kind of confidence normally reserved for battle-tested teams who have been there before rather than one that missed the postseason a year ago. 

Bleacher Report's Kerry Miller had the Irish projected as No. 5 seed prior to Wednesday's win, but they could see a rise to as high as No. 3 depending on how they fare in the ACC tournament. That could get them a more preferable sub-regional destination—Miller has them in Portland—such as Columbus, Louisville or Omaha, which would make reaching the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2003 a strong possibility.

To get beyond that, though, it will require one or two players to step up and take over. Colson is showing that he could be a candidate, but Grant is the key to all things. At 16.7 points and 6.6 assists per game, the senior is Notre Dame's most important weapon and will be the one that must make big plays in clutch situations in order for March to be as successful as the other four months.

Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP.