Notre Dame boys basketball dominates second half in rout of St. Francis

LA CANADA FLINTRIDGE — There are going to be bumps and bruises all over St. Francis’ 7-foot-4 junior Cherif Millogo after the way Notre Dame wrestled with him Thursday.

Notre Dame did a good job of smothering Golden Knights sophomore guard Luke Paulus too, and it was all too much for the Golden Knights to deal with in a 71-48 loss.

St. Francis showed some growth when it played nationally ranked Sierra Canyon to a close loss, 50-47, last week, but it showed the growing pains of a young squad against Notre Dame, which improved to 15-6 overall and 2-2 in the Mission League.

Millogo finished with a team-high 16 points to go with 10 rebounds, three steals and two assists, but he was held to just four points in the second half.

“All credit goes to them, they were great, they were physical,” St. Francis coach Todd Wolfson said. “We got to do a better job coaching and figuring it out. This is all part of learning.”

Notre Dame started to frustrate Millogo at times, who is going to have to get used to teams looking to take away his size with double teams and physical play.

Notre Dame’s Navorro Bowman led all scorers with 23 points in their 71-48 victory over St. Francis. He talked about it. pic.twitter.com/aGDjgs6hJ1

— Fred J. Robledo (@SGVNSports) January 16, 2026

“They pushed and grabbed and held his jersey, and he’s going to get that,” Wolfson said. “It’s part of being a target. He’s starting to get his name where it is, and people want to have a piece of him. We’ve got to grow and learn from that experience.”

St. Francis (18-4, 2-2) trailed for much of the first quarter, but fought back to make it a tied game, 28-28, with a minute left in the half.

But Notre Dame finished the second quarter with five straight points to take a 33-28 lead at halftime, and it continued the run — which reached 12-0 — to start the third quarter.

St. Francis never recovered. It was outscored 24-9 in the third quarter to fall behind 57-37.

It got worse in the fourth quarter, as the Golden Knights fell behind by 30 points.

Notre Dame’s NaVorro Bowman, a 6-4 junior guard with offers from California, Penn State and Illinois, finished with a game-high 21 points. He also did some of the tough work on defense by guarding Paulus.

“Aside from (Millogo), we took away their guard (Paulus), that’s their main floor facilitator,” Bowman said, “and it was my job to take that away.”

Millogo was able to score early. He had an eye-popping dunk off a pass from Paulus in the first half. But Notre Dame made some adjustments at half to slow him down.

“Our motive was to hit him (Millogo) down below, and don’t let him dominate the game,” Bowman said. “In the beginning he got going but we stopped all that in the second half.”

Notre Dame didn’t shoot particularly well, but it made 13 3-pointers. Zachary White had 13 points and Tahj Skinner and Ilan Nikolov finished with eight points apiece.

Norte Dame coach Matt Sargeant thought his team’s effort for 32 minutes was the difference.

“We had a game plan, and we always want to give full effort, and we did that,” Sargeant said. “Luke Paulus is a phenomenal guard, he’s one of the best in the Mission League. It takes a lot to get him frustrated. I don’t know if we were successful doing that, but we did everthing we could.”

St. Francis coach Todd Wolfson talked about the defensive job Notre Dame did on his guards and big man Cherif Millogo in a 71-48 loss pic.twitter.com/Q8x0NeHok4

— Fred J. Robledo (@SGVNSports) January 16, 2026

Notre Dame coach Matt Sargeant watched his team turn Thursday’s game against St. Francis into a rout in the second half, winning 71-48. He talked about it. pic.twitter.com/puzbwQ5QDi

— Fred J. Robledo (@SGVNSports) January 16, 2026