The Irish men's basketball is putting its 2-point, last second loss at Cincinnati on Saturday in perspective.

"If we lost without fighting, I would be very, very upset," Irish captain Tory Jackson said Sunday. "But we fought and we got a lot of positives out of that--and they just made that one big play, that one big basket."

The loss dropped the Irish to 14-4 overall and 3-2 in the Big East. They can't dwell on it because Monday night they have 5th ranked Syracuse coming into town.

Irish head coach Mike Brey said he made the message clear when the team arrived back into South Bend Saturday night.

"I tore up the stat sheet in front of them," Brey explained. "I said, 'yeah, we made a run at it and there we some things we could have done better, but I don't want anyone dwelling on things they didn't do.'"

Brey says he believes Syracuse is the best team in the country. The Orange is 17-1 and coming off a 73-72 win at West Virginia on Saturday. Notre Dame beat the Mountaineers in South Bend the Saturday prior.

Notre Dame-Syracuse is a 7pm tipoff Monday at Purcell Pavilion.