It all seems to be building to that sort of incident. Team without its star player for another game. A Notre Dame squad that will be undersized inside that should let Gary McGhee go wild.

Notre Dame will likely continue to use the lineup it had against Louisville with Harangody out. Forward Carleton Scott made his first collegiate start against the Cardinals, finishing with nine points, five rebounds and three blocks.

The Irish will also likely continue to work in freshman forwards Jack Cooley and Mike Broghammer.

Scott is 6-7 and Cooley and Broghammer are in that 6-8, 6-9 size. The danger is that ND while not having a real big man, has size all over. Abromaitis is 6-8. Nash is 6-8

A team that already shoots tons of 3s,  forced to rely on it even more.

The Irish shot 24 3-pointers in their most recent loss, a 91-89 setback in double overtime against Louisville. In the other game without Harangody, a 69-68 loss at St. John’s, the Irish took 20 3-pointers.

The Irish were competitive in both games because they were making a lot of those 3-point attempts. They were 10 for 20 against St. John’s and 10 for 24 against Louisville.

It was not a two-game spurt. Notre Dame remains a dangerous team against Pitt because it is shooting 41 percent from 3-point range for the season.

Junior forward Tim Abromaitis is shooting 49.5 percent and senior guard Ben Hansbrough 45 percent.

Now Pitt is one of the best teams at defending the three, but when a team is on that doesn’t always matter. The Irish have enough shooters that they can spread the field. Guys like Tory Jackson can penetrate to help create space and draw in defenders.  Plus the Irish are at home.

As if those on-the-court things weren’t enough to make you nervous of a trap game, consider that there is starting to be a bit more of passive media snipes being taken at ND Coach Mike Brey.

The Panthers routinely win at least 20 games overall and 10 league games each winter. Look up the word “program” in the college basketball dictionary and the reference likely says, “See, Panthers, Pittsburgh.”

All the Panthers lost off last season’s team that raced to a 31-5 record were four starters, including staples Levance Fields and Sam Young. All coach Jamie Dixon did was plug in four new faces, albeit veterans, give a little tweak here and there and before many around the country noticed, Pittsburgh put itself in position for a first-round league tournament bye – and may challenge for the regular-season league title.

“They’ve been the best program in my 10 years,” Brey said. “They’ve been there every year. This year is no different.

“They just have a system that is good.”

Players too. Fields and Young and DeJuan Blair step out, and Gilbert Brown, Ashton Gibbs, Gary McGhee and Nasir Robinson step in. The names on the backs of the jerseys may change, but the M.O. seldom has, dating back to the days of Ben Howland and Fitzgerald Field House.

“They’ve got guys who just go out there and play and work,” Jackson said. “They figure out ways to get it done.”

As for Notre Dame, the search continues.

And just for bad karma, talk of how Pitt is among the elite.

Before last season, Dixon was widely criticized for not getting a team past the NCAA tournament’s round of 16. He’ll always be criticized by some until he gets Pitt to a Final Four.

“I don’t care about Final Fours. I care about national championships,” Dixon said. “People don’t remember who made it to the Final Four. They only remember who won the national championship. A national championship is what separates you. We don’t have that yet.”

Notice the man said “yet.”

“I’m going to work as hard as I can to make it happen,” Dixon said.

Pitt is one of the best and most consistent programs in the country. It takes more, though, to be considered one of the elite, top programs. Putting it simply you have to go to Final Fours. You have to win in March and April.

It isn’t a criticism or even suggesting that I have any problems with the program, and especially not at Coach Dixon. I don’t. The fact that he dismisses talk of Pitt as an elite team right now shows how much he gets it. He is proud of what the program has and is doing, but it isn’t good enough. Yet, he is not taking shortcuts to try and get there. I love the path the program and even this present team is taking. I want Coach Dixon here for a long, long time. I want the slower growth, not the flash in the pan.

Just one game at a time, and this one is starting to give me an uneasy feeling.