Winter Wonderland Continues With Notre Dame Athletics
It might be taken for granted, overlooked or elicit a shrug of some shoulders, but Notre Dame this week became the lone program in collegiate athletics to rank in the Top 20 in men’s basketball, women’s basketball and men’s hockey.
• For the second straight weekend, head coach Mike Brey’s Fighting Irish rallied from a double-digit deficit to defeat a ranked team. Notre Dame came back from 15 points down on Feb. 6 versus No. 2 North Carolina, and this past Saturday fell behind by 11 against No. 13 Louisville before pulling out a 71-66 triumph. That catapulted Notre Dame into the AP Top 25 at No. 19 (18-7 overall, 9-4 in the ACC).
• Head coach Muffet McGraw’s 24-1 women’s hoopsters (12-0 in the ACC) have returned to a familiar perch — No. 2 to the UConn dynasty.
• Head coach Jeff Jackson’s icers, after another weekend sweep, are now 13-1-3 in their last 17 contests. Not only did the Fighting Irish take sole possession of first place in Hockey East, but they elevated to No. 7 in the USCHO poll, its highest since a No. 6 placement on Nov. 18, 2013.
Back-To-Back?
Notre Dame men’s basketball has not had consecutive top-15 placements in the Associated Press final regular season poll since 1980-81, the final two seasons of the esteemed Kelly Tripucka-Tracy Jackson-Orlando Woolridge class, when it placed No. 9 and No. 7 respectively.
After finishing No. 8 last year, a Top-10 finish prior to the NCAA Tournament appears a bit of a stretch for the currently 18-7 Irish (9-4 in the ACC) — but Top 15 does not. Among the final five ACC regular season opponents, three of them will be against the bottom one-third of the 15-team league: at 3-9 Georgia Tech this Saturday, at 1-12 Wake Forest (Feb. 24) and the finale at home versus 3-10 North Carolina State (March 5).
The battles at 6-7 Florida State (Feb. 27) and at home versus 9-3 and No. 12 Miami are expected to be more arduous, but the Irish just now seem to be hitting their stride. A 12-6 ACC campaign, which seemed like a pipe dream after the 1-2 start in league play, is well within reach — and at this juncture would seem more a disappointment. A second straight double-bye in the ACC Tournament for the defending champs is in the offing.
And speaking of that Tripucka-Jackson-Woolridge class, they enrolled the year after Notre Dame had its lone team in 1976-77 where five players averaged double figures. That could be matched this by junior guard Demetrius Jackson (17.0), sophomore forward Bonzie Colson (13.9), senior center Zach Auguste (13.8), junior guard Steve Vasturia (13.5), and junior forward V.J. Beachem (10.7).
That 1976-77 unit that lost in the round of 16 to national runner-up North Carolina 79-77 (after the Irish led by 14 in the second half) featured: Duck Williams (18.1), Toby Knight (15.2), Dave Batton (12.2), Bruce Flowers (11.3) and Rich Branning (10.7). Senior sixth man Bill Paterno (9.6) almost reached it too.
Business As Usual
Neither the blindside departures of 2015 starters Jewell Loyd and Taya Reimer nor a season ending injury to reserve freshman point guard Ali Patberg, Indiana’s Miss Basketball last year, has prevented the Irish women’s basketball juggernaut from completing its appointed dominance in the ACC (50-1 in three years).
Four more games remain prior to the conference tourney, and the lone threat on the board to prevent a 16-0 regular season league ledger is the Big Monday outing at No. 10 and 21-4 Florida State on Feb. 22. That showdown (FSU is 11-1 in conference play) has the makings of the ones earlier this season at Duke and at Louisville when the Irish had to rally from five- and six-point deficits in the fourth quarter to win 68-61 and 66-61.
The other three games are at Wake Forest (Feb. 18), and then finishing at home with Clemson (Feb. 25) and Boston College (Feb. 27). The Demon Deacons are 5-7 in the conference, while the Tigers and Eagles bring up the rear in the ACC with 0-12 and 1-11 league ledgers. It provides opportunity to rest the starters and have fresh legs for another postseason push in the league playoffs and then the NCAA Tournament.
The No. 2 ranking is irrelevant compared to which Regional and what matchups will occur among the top 8-12. The past two years, UConn was the clear No. 1 and Notre Dame the clear No. 2. This year the Huskies remain the prohibitive favorite to win their fourth straight national title … but 2 through 16 are much more balanced.
Notre Dame is 8-1 against this week’s AP Top 25, but it had to hold on to the wire in victories at home against No. 5 Ohio State (75-72) and No. 7 Oregon State (62-61), at No. 11 Louisville (66-61), versus No. 12 UCLA in overtime on a neutral floor (92-84), and No. 23 DePaul at home (95-90).
Icing On The Hockey East Cake
After 7th- and 5th-place finishes in its first two seasons of play in the 12-team Hockey East, Notre Dame’s 14-2-2 record in league action this years puts it in first place this week with 30 points, compared to Boston College’s 29 points (12-1-5) — with the powerhouse Eagles also second nationally overall to Quinnipiac.
No one has a tougher finish to the regular season than Notre Dame the next two weekends. It travels to No. 5 Providence College, the defending national champion and only three points behind the Irish in Hockey East with a 12-3-3 record, for face-offs on Friday and Saturday. Then on Feb. 26-27 the Irish close with No. 9 Boston U., last year’s national runner-up to the Friars.
Putting a league championship on ice will be the most formidable task among Notre Dame’s Big 3 winter sports.