ND STAKES CLAIM TO THIRD WITH WIN OVER CHARLESTON

The No. 3 seed Notre Dame Bulldogs cruised to an easy 59-47 win over the No. 1 seed Charleston Bluejays to capture the third-place trophy on Saturday.

Charleston's season-long woes continued as they dropped their second straight to fall to 3-7.

The Bulldogs (7-3) used a nine-point run about midway through the first quarter to pull away and were never seriously threatened by the cold-shooting Bluejays.

With a decided height advantage, the Bulldogs went inside to attack Charleston.

Notre Dame's 6-foot-6 center Doug Schaefer, an all-tournament selection, was unstoppable in the paint as he scored a game-high 22 points.

"The big guy (Schaefer) kinda' killed us at the beginning of the game," said Charleston coach Danny Farmer.

"I thought, going in, that if we executed offensively we could have success scoring," said Notre Dame mentor Darrin Scott. "The biggest key is that we were really patient on offense. We looked to get it to him (Schaefer), but we didn't force it."

Charleston saw its last lead early in the opening quarter at 8-7. The Bulldogs went on a nine-point run to take a 16-8 lead as the period ended.

Notre Dame, continuing to work inside, extended its lead to 33-20 at the intermission.

Schaefer notched six points with four of those coming off nice assists from Jonathan Ressel, also named to the all-tournament squad.

The Bulldogs maintained a comfortable cushion throughout the third period and led 44-33 going into the final stanza.

Charleston managed to narrow the margin to nine at 46-37 early in the fourth quarter. But, once again, their poor shooting came back to haunt them down the stretch as they went 0 for 7 from three-point range.

The Bluejays depend on their outside shooting to compensate for their lack of height. They were 3 of 16 from three-point territory for the game 19 percent.

"Our problems are more mental than physical," said Farmer. "You play bad and your confidence goes down. If we can get our minds together, I think we'll be all right."

Scott Wittenborn and Ressel contributed 12 points each for the Bulldogs.

Charleston's Jordy Mixon, an undersized post player at 5-10, led the Bluejays with 15 points.