After tormenting Notre Dame, how far can West Virginia's press take it?

Nathan Adrian, Jevon Carter and West Virginia got to Notre Dame with their pressure defense.

Notre Dame basketball is often a thing of beauty. Year after year, the Fighting Irish have one of the most efficient attacks in college basketball. Year after year, Mike Brey and his team pick apart opponents with surgical offense. And they never turn the ball over.

This season was no different. Notre Dame averaged 9.3 turnovers per game. It had the lowest turnover percentage in the nation, coughing the ball up on just 13.8 percent of possessions. It has one of the savviest point guards in college basketball.

On Saturday afternoon, it was made to look like a turnover-prone offense in preseason form by Press Virginia.

Fourth-seeded West Virginia harried and hassled and pressured and pestered and swarmed the fifth-seeded Fighting Irish, forcing 14 turnovers in an 83-71 second-round win despite pulling back its press late.

Notre Dame fans awoke from their post-St. Patrick’s Day slumbers to see a team that looked unprepared for what was flying at them. Notre Dame turned the ball over four times in the first eight minutes. It made just one field goal. It trailed 15-4.

The shot-making eventually came, but ball security didn’t. The Irish had 10 turnovers by halftime, and West Virginia turned an 11th into a dunk and a nine-point lead early in the second period:

WVU wants a date to the Sweet 16 #MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/fJAubPRuyY

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) March 18, 2017

West Virginia’s full-court aggressiveness abated in the second half as it maintained a lead between five and 10 points, but its suffocating defense was still effective in half-court sets. The Mountaineers took Notre Dame out of its offensive rhythm, and held the Irish to 0.99 points per possession.

It’s easy to get fixated on the turnovers and disregard the many other reasons that Notre Dame is going home and West Virginia is moving on. Notre Dame missed open jump shots. West Virginia hit them. West Virginia got to the rim with ease in the first half, and caught fire from deep in the second. It made 8 of 14 triples overall.

But the press and the turnovers are the defining features of any game against the Mountaineers, the things that differentiate them from a game against any other opponent. In a game decided by two or three possessions — which Saturday’s was until West Virginia pulled away late — the difference between 10 turnovers and 14 turnovers can be the difference between the Sweet 16 and the end of a season.

Notre Dame’s struggles with the press also raise the question: If Press Virginia can do this to Notre Dame, is there anybody the Mountaineers can’t do it to?

And whether there is or isn’t, is there any ceiling on the Mountaineers’ NCAA tournament potential?

West Virginia has long been undervalued by traditional metrics and its win-loss record. It has spent nearly the entire season in Ken Pomeroy’s top 10, and much of it in the top five. It suffered a few puzzling losses in November and January, but all were close losses. It was a 14-point, two-minute collapse away from sweeping Kansas. It won two out of three against Iowa State, and beat Baylor by 21.

The Mountaineers don’t lose when they shoot 40 percent or better from beyond the arc. They crash the offensive glass like crazy. And, of course, they force turnovers on 27.9 percent of defensive possessions, the top rate in the country.

West Virginia doesn’t have big-name stars, though the letters in Jevon Carter’s name are growing in stature. But they have a deep rotation of talented, athletic players who give opponents hell on both ends, not just the defensive one.

“It’s never one guy,” head coach Bob Huggins said after the game to CBS. “It’s a multitude of guys. And they compete like crazy.”

They’ll compete like crazy in a Sweet 16 game on Thursday night, whether it’s against Gonzaga or Northwestern. Both are favorable matchups for the versatile Mountaineers. Both offer a door to the Elite Eight.

There is no way to prepare for West Virginia’s press other than to play against West Virginia’s press. Nobody remaining in the West region has this year. Nobody, therefore, will be prepared for it, and the Mountaineers look like a prime candidate to win twice more and reach the Final Four.