And don't waste your time with expressions of compassion and empathy. Why? Because the Irish hoopsters don't deserve it. What's more, they're not worthy of such outpourings of concern!

They got exactly what was coming to them. All the heartache, anguish and dejection this team endured was completely self-inflicted. It served them right.

When you continue to make the same old mistakes, fail to learn from past experience and give away games at an alarming rate, you can't bemoan your circumstances when tragic things befall you.

As Charlie Weis once said, "You are what you are." And what the ND cagers were was a mediocre team that was composed of veritable Edisons when it came to inventing ways to lose tight games.

This team never closed the deal in virtually every meaningful game it played all season long. Given their penchant for messing up at the end, it's questionable if ND would prevail even if they were inbounding the ball, owned a 10-point lead and there were but 30 seconds left on the clock.

Based upon this group's track record, a victory even in that promising scenario would hardly be a lock.

For too long we've been told that the Irish were merely victims of bad luck, a snakebit crew who couldn't catch a break. Bull! You make your own breaks and this bunch never did.

The sorry state they find themselves into today is solely of their own creation.

This team was constantly praised, believe it or not, for having loads of heart. Well, if that's true, they didn't have enough. At least, not when it mattered the most. Just check the results. You don't lose eight games by three points or less if your ticker is stout.

There were also the constant references to the resiliency Mike Brey's club possessed. But there's little redemption in coming back from large deficits if you never gain the prize.

Resiliency implies persevering, enduring and then ultimately succeeding. Not even Brey, with his often misplaced optimism, could find many positives in this downer of a season.

And let us not forget the overhyped amount of credit this squad received for simply not quitting. Yes, it's admirable to soldier on and not pack it in but isn't that what's expected of Division 1 athletes. Aren't you suppose to give your best and stick it out even when circumstances take an unfavorable turn?

It's a given that when the media, the coaches and even the players start trying to sell the public on the fact that the Irish fought the good fight as opposed to focusing on wins and achievement, the bottom line must be rather dismal.

Being exalted for not surrendering is faint praise indeed.

Now, let's get down to the nitty gritty and breakdown what went so terribly wrong.

The shortcomings of the team were many. Do you want the "War and Peace" version or should we simply use the Cliff Notes. Because of time constraints, let's try to be reasonably brief.

To begin with, ND's defense, in any form they employed, was as leaky as a sieve. Yielding over 76 points a game in the Big East is a damning indictment of just how porous and poor the Irish were at defending.

And forget about getting big stops in crunch time. They failed miserably at that endeavor. When games were there for the taking, when just one defensive stand meant sure victory, ND always went belly-up.

Virtually very facet of their "D" was inferior. The list was endless. They couldn't box out, allowed far too many put-backs and never did get the hang of switching out properly.

But there's even more to mull over. The Irish were also ineffectual at contesting the 3-point shot, trapping with precision and preventing easy shots from down low.

Whatever Brey is teaching, the players aren't absorbing because over the last three seasons, the Irish defense has been woeful and a true liability.

More than any other shortcoming they exhibited, ND's incapability to protect their end was its most damaging flaw.

So much about playing cohesive defense is about effort, smarts, determination and commitment. In all those areas, the Irish were clearly lacking.

On the offensive side, ND's most conspicuous fault was its misguided and bullheaded over- reliance on a perimeter game.

Yes, Chris Quinn and Colin Falls are legitimate weapons when they're stroking it but both were prone to cold spells when key games reached critical mass. When their shots from distance deserted them, the Domers were basically dead meat.

Foolishly, the Irish relied on a scheme with limited options.

Oh sure, they made half-hearted attempts to get Torin Francis into the flow but if the senior forward didn't get off right away, ND too often abandoned him. Their impatience with trying to establish something underneath was stunning.

The one overriding reason why the Irish had innumerable and costly scoring droughts was because they had no consistent inside game, where the shot percentages are higher and drawing free throws is more likely.

Much greater emphasis should have been placed on pounding the rock down deep where Francis, Rick Cornett and even Rob Kurz might have been dependable contributors if not genuine forces. 

A basic and generally sound basketball tenet is that you work things from the inside and then go out. The Irish did just the opposite and it cost them big-time.

We could go on for quite some time detailing more deficiencies. Chronic slow starts, inability to maintain or expand leads, shoddy free-throw shooting in the clutch, lack of motion on offense, difficulty in inbounding the ball and wasting timeouts. These were but a few of the ills that undermined the program.

Not to mention the biggest stain of all. The confounding inability of this team to learn from adversity and translate some of those gut-wrenching defeats into a few down-the-road victories. They were true dunces when it came to absorbing that lesson.

It could be argued that the Irish were almost pathological in their repeated behavior of booting away games as they wound down. Losing close became ingrained in their psyche, seemingly etched in their DNA.

And the brutal truth is they didn't possess the character or the gumption to overcome the circumstances that tested and challenged them.   They proved to be severely wanting when games were on the line.

So waste no time in singing the blues for this underachieving and masochistic team. If there are to be any tears of regret and remorse, let the Irish do the sobbing.