Notre Dame victorious against Vianney

It's a half-full, half-empty kind of thing.

Sure, Notre Dame coach Darrin Scott was proud of his guys for digging their way out of a 9-2 hole.

But why were the Bulldogs in a 9-2 hole in the first place?

Notre Dame (9-4) got off to a terrible start, but came back to capture a 50-46 victory over Class 4A Vianney in the Tiger Shootout at the Tiger Fieldhouse Saturday.

"We came out flat, not ready to play," Notre Dame coach Darrin Scott said. "It seems every time I'm nice before the game, I end up having to get in their face to get them going."

Notre Dame, a Class 2A school, turned the ball over on its first three possessions of the game and it took the Bulldogs until their seventh possession to score a basket. But once Vianney (5-7) got up 9-2, Travis Siebert hit two 3-pointers to stop the bleeding.

From there, the two teams played evenly until the fourth quarter when the Bulldogs started the final eight minutes with a 9-0 run to take a 47-37 lead.

Vianney wouldn't go away, though, as sophomore forward Brandon Beal went on a personal 8-0 run to get the Golden Griffins to within 47-45 with 1:25 to go.

Siebert and 6-foot-6 center Doug Schaefer had 14 points apiece, to combine for 56 percent of the Bulldogs' offense.

It was Schaefer's best game of the season. He scored five points in the fourth quarter.

"This is the first time Doug has looked to score and the first time we've looked for Doug," said Scott of his center who usually looks to pass rather than shoot. "If Doug could give that effort for us every night, we're going to be a pretty good basketball team."

As far as the poor first few minutes, Scott didn't know exactly what the Bulldogs' problem was other than a subpar effort.

When the Bulldogs started playing better, "I thought we just played harder," he said. "Sometimes when teams play harder, it fixes the technical mistakes."

Vianney coach Kevin Walsh -- whose Griffins (5-7) suffered their first loss in five years at the Shootout -- knew the early lead wouldn't hold up.

"We wanted to jump on them early," he said. "But we didn't think we could put them away in the first half because they play so hard. They competed with a level of intensity I don't think our kids were ready for."

Beal led Vianney with 12 points, nine of which came in the fourth quarter.

Notre Dame trailed 31-29 at halftime, but led 38-37 going into the fourth quarter.