Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/296331
UNDER THE DOME 3. WOMEN'S BASKETBALL (2012-13) — 30 After losing to Baylor in December, McGraw's squad won 30 in a row, three of them against Connecticut, be‑ fore losing to the Huskies 83‑65 in the Final Four. 4. MEN'S TENNIS (1965-67) — 29 Head coach Tom Fallon's program won 514 games during his career and shared the 1959 national title. It won the last five matches of 1965, all 15 in 1966 and the first nine in 1967. 5T. WOMEN'S SOCCER (2008) — 26 Randy Waldrum's Irish were 26‑0 heading into the NCAA Tournament championship match, but lost to their nemesis North Carolina in the finale. Tar Heels head coach Anson Dorrance (21 NCAA championships) has rivaled UConn women's basketball coach Geno Auriemma (nine national titles) as the greatest thorn in Notre Dame's side in the athletic arena. 5T. MEN'S SOCCER (1977-78) — 26 After years as a club sport, men's soccer became a varsity sport in 1977 while playing mostly local or provin‑ cial schools. The season began 0‑1‑1 before finishing with 16 straight victo‑ ries. The next year, the Irish won their first 10 games to increase the streak to 26. 7T. WOMEN'S BASKETBALL (2000-01) — 23 Highlighted by a watershed vic‑ tory against UConn, McGraw's Irish opened the season 23‑0 before losing to Rutgers. Notre Dame then topped Connecticut in the Final Four en route to its lone national title in the sport. 7T. BASEBALL (2006) — 23 In his final season of his 12‑year ca‑ reer at Notre Dame, head coach Paul Mainieri's Irish compiled this winning streak during a 45‑17‑1 campaign. The Irish made the NCAA Tournament each of Mainieri's last eight seasons, highlighted by the 2002 World Series. After the season, Mainieri accepted the LSU job, where in his third season he won the national title. Meanwhile, Notre Dame has missed the NCAA Tournament in the seven straight sea‑ Pre-1950 Winning Streaks Although our research of longest winning streaks at Notre Dame went back only to 1950, we are not aware of any that were longer than this year's 37 by the women's basketball team. The 1908-09 Notre Dame men's basketball team that finished 33-7 did win 22 straight games from Dec. 23 through Feb. 9. Among the victims were numerous Y.M.C.A. clubs across the country and a team named Battery A. In addition to the 39-game unbeaten streak from 1946-50, the football team also was un- beaten in 26 games from 1929-31. Head coach Knute Rockne led the 1929 (9-0) and 1930 (10-0) teams to consensus national titles before his death in a plane crash on March 31, 1931. Under Hunk Anderson in 1931, the Irish won their opener but had a scoreless tie with North- western in the second game before winning five more games. The unbeaten string ended with a 16-14 loss at home to USC. The 1919-21 units also won 20 straight under Rockne. — Lou Somogyi