SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Marquette fans had seen this scene before.

Their team was leading 34-33 on the road against Notre Dame with less than four minutes remaining in the first half. But a 13-2 run by the Fighting Irish to close out the opening 20 minutes, punctuated with a fast-break dunk by sophomore Luke Harangody as time expired, put the Golden Eagles in a 46-36 hole.

In previous Big East losses, Marquette often appeared lifeless in the second half, particularly on the road. The Golden Eagles lost by 15 points at West Virginia, by 20 points at Louisville and by 16 points at Connecticut.

This time looked different. Marquette still lost 86-83 to drop to 16-6 on the season, including a 6-5 mark in Big East play. But the Golden Eagles rallied down the stretch with a 9-0 run from the 3:22 mark in the second half to the 32-second mark.

Although the Golden Eagles fell short, they chose to look at the run as something off of which to build.

"There were many, many times that our guys could have folded up the tents and not thought this was a winnable game," said head coach Tom Crean. "We played hard and competed in spite of a ton of adversity inside of a 40-minute game."

Junior guard Dominic James agreed, saying, "We can definitely take some positives from it, the way that we stuck with each other toward the end of the game, got stops when we needed them and made big plays."

But if Notre Dame's narrow win over Marquette on Saturday proved anything, it was that, as long as the Golden Eagles are forced to rely heavily on guard play, their performance will be unreliable.

Sure, James led all scorers with 23 points, hitting 10-of-16 shots from the field. That performance was offset, however, by the 3-of-15 shooting of junior Jerel McNeal and the four-point output (on 2-of-3 shooting) of junior Wesley Matthews.

James' performance was further diluted by the production of the Marquette post players. Lazar Hayward scored 21 points and grabbed 11 rebounds, but Ousmane Barro shot just 1-for-9 from the field, scoring two points. Dwight Burke fared a little better, scoring four points, but he failed to pull down a rebound in eight minutes of play.

"We tried to play 40 minutes, and we had some tough stretches," Crean said. "We had something to do with the mistakes they made, and they had something to do with the mistakes we made."

Notre Dame (18-4, 8-2), on the other hand, got 44 points from its post players, including an 18-point, 11-rebound effort from Harangody. Five players scored in double figures for the Fighting Irish, and the team attempted 31 free throws to Marquette's eight.

In the final 32 seconds of the game, James, Marquette's most heralded guard, blew by Notre Dame's Tory Jackson on three consecutive possessions for easy lay-ups. Each time, the Fighting Irish were content to get the ball back to Harangody, who calmly hit four free throws to keep Marquette at arm's length.

Marquette had been 7-of-13 from behind the three point arc in the second half, but the strategy neutralized the Golden Eagles' ability to hit from outside.

"We were great from the foul line," said Notre Dame head coach Mike Brey. "We did a good job of not giving up the three in the last couple of possessions. You've got to live with a James lay-up quick.

"A three pointer changes the whole climate (of the game). We can absorb (two-point shots), because I feel like we're going to come back and make free throws."