Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/499410
UNDER THE DOME began to dry up at Notre Dame af‑ ter 1980‑81, when football head coach Dan Devine's final Irish team (9‑2‑1) finished No. 9 in the AP poll and bas‑ ketball coach Digger Phelps' cagers were No. 7 before getting upset in the second round of the NCAA Tourna‑ ment by BYU. However, the 2014‑15 season saw a new tandem at Notre Dame take con‑ trol as the best combination in the coun‑ try: men's and women's basketball. • Both won the ACC championship, a conference that is generally recog‑ nized as the best in the country. • Notre Dame was the lone school to have a first‑team All‑American on the five‑person AP units from both teams: guards Jerian Grant and Jewell Loyd. • Notre Dame was the lone school to advance to the Elite Eight in both men's and women's basketball. • Seven schools saw both their men's and women's program place in the final regular‑season AP top 25. Notre Dame's was the only one in the Best Season Ever? Was the 2014‑15 Notre Dame men's basketball season the best ever since 1953, the first year the school accepted a bid to the NCAA Tournament? An argument can be made that it was — if one distinguishes between "best" and "most successful." In a seven‑game series, the 1973‑74 and 1977‑78 Irish teams would be favored over this past year's edition, based on NBA‑level talent alone. The 1973‑74 unit featured first‑round selections in center John Shumate, forward Adrian Dantley and guard Gary Brokaw (Dantley and Brokaw both turned pro after their respective junior years). The 26‑3 record (.896 winning percentage) that year was better than this year's 32‑6 ledger (.842), and that team featured road wins against Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan State, Ohio State, Kansas and South Carolina (ending the Gamecocks' 34‑game home winning streak), plus it snapped UCLA's NCAA‑record 88‑game winning streak and toppled NCAA runner‑up Marquette. The Irish defeated three of that year's Final Four teams (Kansas, Marquette and UCLA). The 1977‑78 edition had a Kentucky‑like eight future NBA players, led by first‑round picks Kelly Tripucka, Orlando Woolridge and Bill Hanzlik, and remains the only one in school history to reach the Final Four. Yet both of those teams were projected to be top‑five teams or Final Four‑caliber. This year's came out of no‑ where after last season's 15‑17 finish, so it was more of a pleasant surprise. However, in terms of success: • The 32 wins were the most in the modern era, eclipsing the 27 in 2010‑11. • The ACC championship, while beating traditional powers Duke and North Carolina in their home state, was the first Notre Dame title in its 20‑year history of league play and ranks as the most impressive tourney run in program history. • The nine victories (9‑3 overall) versus teams that finished in the final top 25 — including 2‑1 versus national champ Duke — were the most in one season by a Notre Dame team. • This year's group joined the 1977‑78 edition as the only one ever to win three straight games in the NCAA Tournament (back then the Irish needed only three wins, not four, to reach the Final Four). It maybe wasn't the "best" Notre Dame team individually, but there wasn't a more successful one overall in the program's history. — Lou Somogyi