Boston College basketball coach Jim Christian couldn’t make it to the post-game interview room following the Eagles’ 73-72 victory over Notre Dame Saturday at Purcell Pavilion.

Christian, wearing basketball footwear while gingerly moving up and down the Boston College bench area, is scheduled for ankle surgery – both ankles – within the next week.

Rather than ride his way to the interview room or limp there, it was decided before the game that he would bypass the post-game process altogether.

Mike Brey didn’t enter the interview room with a noticeable limp, but a more appropriate entrance – figuratively -- would have been on crunches or in a wheelchair.

The Notre Dame basketball program is badly injured, damaged, broken.

“I think it was my worst week as a coach here at Notre Dame,” said Brey in a game in which the Irish never led and saw a 13-game winning streak against the Eagles come to a close. “Absolutely my worst week, and I told (the players) that.

“I didn’t do a very good job of preparing us for Maryland or in the game. Then we came back Thursday and were moping a little bit because we got our butts whooped and we’ve got a guy down. I didn’t push at it or address it. I don’t think I had a really good week helping our guys.”

Three days earlier in College Park, Md., Notre Dame competed for about 12 minutes and then were overrun by No. 3-ranked Maryland. The final score was 72-51, but the Irish trailed by 25 and could have lost by 30.

Athletically, the match-up proved farcical. The Terrapins ran circles around Notre Dame’s eight-man rotation, a roster shortcoming that has been in play the last three seasons. Bouncy red-shirt freshman Robby Carmody joined the injured list with a torn ACL, one day after Brey announced the departure of red-shirt freshman big man Chris Doherty due to a lack of playing time.

“They are really good and I knew it coming in,” said Brey of Maryland. “That was varsity versus the J.V. tonight. We were the J.V. They varsity toyed with us tonight.”

With the back-to-back losses to Maryland and Boston College, the Irish fell to 6-21 in games against teams from the ACC, the Big Ten, the Big 12 and the Pac-12, and 4-18 in its last 22 games versus ACC brethren.

The Irish aren’t just losing; they’ve lost the chemistry and tenacity that carried them to back-to-back Elite Eights in 2015-16. They can’t shoot the basketball accurately either.

A CRUMBLING INFRASTRUCTURE

There was a time, just a couple of seasons ago in fact, when Mike Brey would just work his basketball magic on the practice floor and voila! everything would return to normal and the Fighting Irish would right the ship. Even injuries didn’t prevent the Irish from finding ways to be among the upper echelon of first the Big East and then the ACC.

Just two seasons ago, he had Bonzie Colson, Matt Farrell and Martinas Geben. Three stud college basketball players that could make the Irish competitive in any setting and frequently win in locations less than conducive to success.

Then the injuries hit, and this time, Notre Dame couldn’t overcome it. First Colson and then Farrell and finally Colson again as an unfortunate turn of events – Davidson won its Atlantic 10 Conference tournament championship -- denied the Irish a fourth straight NCAA tournament appearance.

The 2017-18 season ended with a hobbled Colson on the bench as the Irish lost to Penn State at Purcell Pavilion in the NIT. Little did anyone realize at that moment just how far the Irish were about to fall.

After the second of Notre Dame’s Elite Eight runs, veteran Notre Dame assistant coaches Anthony Solomon and Martin Ingelsby left the program. Ingelsby – a former Brey point guard at Notre Dame – landed the top position at Delaware, which is where Brey began his collegiate head-coaching career. Solomon left Notre Dame for a spot on the Georgetown coaching staff.

Enter two more former Brey players at Notre Dame – Ryan Humphrey and Ryan Ayers – who would coach the frontcourt and backcourt respectively while joining long-time Brey assistant Rod Balanis.

Following the departure of Colson, Farrell and Geben, the program now was in the hands of big man John Mooney and guards T.J. Gibbs and Rex Pflueger with sophomore D.J. Harvey seemingly ready to emerge as the highest-rated player in the program.

Mooney developed – big time – but Harvey was considered a cancerous presence, as had been sharpshooting Matt Ryan who left following the 2016-17 season. The 2018-19 team collapsed, even with what was considered a strong five-man freshman class.

The Irish won just three of 18 ACC games last season, taking a dramatic turn for the worse when the pulse of the team – Pflueger – went down with a season-ending knee injury in December. The Irish never recovered and finished last in the 15-team conference.

CLEAN LOOKS? DOESN’T MATTER

Now nine games into this season, it’s apparent once again that this team – coinciding with the lack of development of any player outside of Mooney – is not good enough athletically and basketball-wise to compete at a high level.

Already 0-2 in the ACC, the league is not nearly as fierce as it was in 2018-19 after a large batch of the best players moved on. The league has, or so it appears, come back to Notre Dame after its last-place finish in the ACC.

But the Irish aren’t stepping up, due largely to the fact that this is a horrible shooting basketball team.

In the last 42 games – 33 last year and nine so far this season -- Notre Dame has shot 31 percent from three-point range. In ACC games alone -- 20 regular-season games and two ACC tournament games -- the Irish have converted 174-of-588 three-point shots. That’s 29.5 percent.

“The law of averages say things will even out,” Brey has said on numerous occasions the last 42 games. But it hasn’t evened out and there’s no reason to believe it will.

It doesn’t matter if the Irish are shooting at Purcell Pavilion, which has always been one of the most shooter-friendly arenas in America, or someone else’s gym with a game-day shootaround to acclimate. Notre Dame can’t shoot the basketball well from beyond the three-point stripe.

If anything, what the law of averages say is that the Irish, against quality competition, are more like a 25 percent three-point shooting team with games against Presbyterian and Fairleigh Dickinson helping bring that mark up to the 30-31 percent range.

Long gone are the shooters. Long gone is the NBA-level or near-NBA-level talent such as Pat Connaughton, Jerian Grant, Zach Auguste, Demetrius Jackson, Colson, Farrell and Geben. Mooney has made himself a standout big man with great rebounding prowess and a chance to play on the next level. But without shooting prowess around him, and without the talent and the depth, Notre Dame has become an eyesore to watch.

Brey’s best teams were a free-flowing art form brought to life. The last two Irish squads have had no offensive flow, no cohesion, and no chemistry, which always superseded other physical shortcomings. Even when the Irish do have a good offensive set, it usually goes unrewarded with a sub-30 percent shooting touch from distance.

A FOUNDATION IN RUINS

When Brey signed the current sophomore class of Nate Laszewski, Dane Goodwin, Prentiss Hubb, Carmody and Doherty, it was hailed as the foundation of Notre Dame’s next Elite Eight run.

Just 60 percent of that class remains with Brey announcing the departure of Doherty earlier this week and Carmody’s torn ACL suffered in the final minute of Notre Dame’s loss to Maryland.

His game-tying three-pointer at the buzzer in regulation notwithstanding, Laszewski – who has the prettiest and cleanest looking jump shot on the team – has made 7-of-32 three-pointers (21.8 percent) this season.

Hubb, who wasn’t expected to be a great shooter but more of a facilitator, still must step up and take shots for the Irish. He made just 26.2 percent of his 164 three-point attempts as a freshman and has converted just 27.6 percent into his second season.

Senior T.J. Gibbs’ game has deteriorated so much in the last two seasons that one would have thought his sophomore year was his senior year and that his junior-seniors seasons were his first two in the program. Gibbs went 0-of-11 from the field Wednesday night against Maryland.

Gibbs bounced back with a strong second half against Boston College, leading the Irish from down 12 points to within two with less than two seconds remaining. But alas, in typical fashion that has earmarked Gibbs’ and Notre Dame’s play the last 42 games, Gibbs missed the first of two free throws and the Irish fell by one.

Juwan Durham, the 6-foot-11 transfer from Connecticut, has given the Irish a rim protector they’ve seldom had. And yet his inconsistent performances, generally due to a lack of physical toughness, only lends to the uncertainty of performance from one game to the next.

Rex Pflueger, the senior captain returning from a knee injury and the heartbreak of his mother succumbing to cancer this summer, has tried to be a strong influence. But the fire has flickered as he tries to overcome the physical hurdle.

Goodwin had produced from distance – he had made 11-of-24 in the first seven games – until a 0-of-6 against Boston College. His lack of athleticism showed against Maryland in what has been, just like his classmates, a wildly inconsistent level of performance.

Even with Stanford transfer Cormac Ryan eligible next season and two signed recruits coming in, the Irish – as they are currently constructed – will have just 10 players on scholarship in 2020-21 following the departure of Mooney, Gibbs and Pflueger. Brey has hinted that Durham might not exercise his fifth-year option with the Irish in 2020-21, which would drop the total to nine.

They can seek a grad transfer or two, or find another prospect to join incoming big men Elijah Taylor and Matt Zona. But once again, it has the feel of a pieced-together team that resembles more of a grab-bag than a well-executed plan. Roster management seemingly has been conducted without a plan…or the ability to count.

Class of 2020 big man Hunter Dickinson – a 7-foot-2 center from Brey’s DeMatha Catholic alma mater – reportedly has narrowed his choices down to Notre Dame, Duke, Michigan and Florida State. But considering the current state of affairs with the Notre Dame basketball program, no one is expecting the Irish to land 247Sports’ No. 37 prospect.

This isn’t a reloading Notre Dame or a rebuilding Notre Dame, it is a collapsing Fighting Irish squad with an unsteady foundation upon which to build. The incoming freshman duo are good players, but not the NBA-level prospects that created an ACC crown in 2015 and were trending to NCAA tournament fixtures.

A DOUBTFUL FUTURE

A season of painful ACC outcomes appear to be on the horizon, particularly now that player development has waned and, apparently, the proper feel for what Brey’s team needed emotionally in order to defeat a Boston College team that hadn’t knocked off the Irish since 2004.

“I wasn’t plugged into the vibe enough to kind of feel that on Thursday,” said Brey as he reflected further on what he didn’t do post-Maryland to pre-Boston College. “I don’t think I really sensed it until the shootaround this morning, and then I thought we played that way.

“I told them, ‘Fellas, I’ve got to be better for you. Let me start on Sunday with being better for you.’”

The Irish rallied to make the game competitive against the Eagles, but per usual, it was too little, too late without enough motivation to come out playing aggressively against – to be realistic – a very average Boston College squad.

Even the bench scoring, which the Irish were able to rely upon in winning six straight non-conference home games, fizzled as Laszewski, Goodwin and Nik Djogo combined for 1-of-8 three-point shooting. It was another predictable turn of events against increased competition.

“There’s a tendency for them to put the weight of the world on themselves,” Brey said. “But we really don’t have anything to lose. We’re 0-2 in the league. I don’t know what we’re protecting. But this was one where they felt (the pressure). It’s fragile.”

As fragile as a program that hasn’t recruited aggressively (let alone well), hasn’t developed players, can’t shoot it, and lacks physical prowess and toughness.

The 20th year of the Brey era is on shaky footing. It looks like the last leg of a docile closing to an otherwise solid two-decade run.