Sent it in to OT where ND won.
If I remember, it was from half-court
Only remember it because I was sitting about 15 rows up from the basket when it went thru. Whole place goes silent except for a handful of ND fans...one of them being a guy I knew from Zahm who happened to be sitting about 10 rows in front of me. Best part was I took an ND friend to the game and the Zahm guy turned out to be his boss!
Syracuse failing to guard the inbound pass. . .the pass by Phonz and Bennett draining the shot followed by the drive-by "Irish Jig" handshake by Coach Phelps.
We stayed up until the early hours of the following morning to greet the team bus at the old circle. It was great - Digger got the crowd fired up and finished with "Beat DePaul". ND would go on to lose a couple of nights later to DePaul at the JACC on a last second tip-in.
A couple of weeks later ND - tournament hopes slim - hosted Missouri. Sports-reference.com confirms Mizzou was #3 but if memory serves me #1 and 2 had lost earlier in the week and Mizzou was effectively coming in as a #1. ND ran them off the court 98-67, picked up a win vs. Kentucky, but then lost to DePaul again - this one at the Horizon.
ND finished 16-12, DePaul was 18-14. The NCAA committee selected ND, and left DePaul out of the field. The Syracuse and Missouri wins were likely the key.
Love seeing the footage from that game . . . in the slow motion replay of Digger's celebration you can see Ann Hart behind the bench. Ann was ND's first female head manager of Men's Hoops. Not only did she do a great job, she was a great person and died far too young in 2003.
. . . college’s general scholarship fund, to further assist qualified non-scholarship students in all chosen academic fields.
Was electric.
effusive. I think Boeheim hated him for it.
It was a well designed and executed play.
in the neighborhood. All the other kids were MU fans. I remember the kid down the street called me five minutes after the game ended to rub it in. I hung up on him. My parents scolded me for being a poor sport. Even now, I think, “fuck him”.
Faked a spin and then hit a step back 15 footer bank shot for the win behind the old bookstore. Vermin onlookers started chanting the ESPN Sportscenter jingle.
There is no video.
In the third round we ran into Paul Grasmanis and Jeremy Akers. They devastated us. I may still have scar tissue in my thigh from going baseline against Grasmanis.
Thankfully, there is also no video.
with my step son. He was/is not a big sports guy- but even he found it exciting (almost as much as the half time refreshment stand).
Thomas to Francis- their only season together where both were healthy.
No fouls called in the last 4:00. No balls out of bounds to stop the clock. Just a couple of 30-second timeouts that weren't turned into full timeouts for media in thse days.
It was continuous basketball with no lead greater than 4 points from the media timeout with 7:21 left until the end of the game.
That was a seriously tough Pitt team - Jaron Brown, Brandin Knight, Carl Krauser, Ontario Lett, Julius Page, Chevon Troutman... a bunch of badasses. Clean players, but tough.
The Irish had their own tough guys - Dan Miller, Torrian Jones, Matt Carroll, and of course Tom Timmermans.
Tough, physical basketball without sacrificing the beauty of the game.
Addendum:
I wonder if Francis would have caught the ball and turned it into a shot so smoothly later in his career. He was not the same guy after his back injury. His movements were not as fluid, and he dropped a lot of passes and rebounds which are ways a serious back injury shows itself.
Made the end of that game very exciting.
Thomas with a couple of bone headed plays early on in the video.
That open trey ND gave up in the zone was terrible. The trey in the MTM was not because of atrocious defense.
It would be easy to criticize the Pitt big man for giving up inside position to Francis, but he probably was expecting a shot to go up.
I still say the NCAA changed the spaces on the FT lane because of the way Troutman and Lett would just shove guys under the basket when Pitt was shooting FT's.
And wow- Mike Brey looked super skinny in 2003.
David Graves versus highly ranked OSU not longer after TDG ran them into the ground after losing an ex game.
I wonder if I annoyed EK more with that one, than the non pre-Brey recollection?
I also want to say that Toby Knight may have made a last second shot in an NCAAT game versus Maryland.
Seem to recall Rivers hurt his ankle or something in the ensuing celebration.
Edit: Looks like it was ND-Marquette, January 1985 at the MECCA, Notre Dame won 63-62.
Graves hit one vs. Ohio State early in Doherty's season, right? Pre-season NIT?
But wow, I've never seen Doc's shot. That's brutal!
I were watching. I recall my Dad had given up after Marquette scored saying no way they can get it up the court in 6 seconds and get a good shot. Well, Rivers got the ball streaked up the court and layed it in with ease.
My Dad and I were at an OSCO drug store, in the electronics section. The game was on a TV, we stood there and watched it as it happened. I remember it vividly. Yet I can't remember what I had for dinner last night.
Toby Knight - tip-in v. CIncinnati in '76 NCAA tournament
Tracy Jackson - 30-foot bomb to beat Villanova at the ACC 1980.
A few nights later, Tracy hit a jumper with about 5 seconds left (not a buzzer beater, of course) to beat Maryland by a point.
In January '82, Pax hit a buzzer beater to send a game against Idaho (top 10 team at the time) into OT, which we won 50-48. That was a rare highlight from that lost season.
Two good wins that season Idaho and split a game with San Francisco. Quintin Dailey RIP.
I remember the Nova game well with TJ and the Maryland game was the snow in game. I looked up that game and ND won by 15.
It became my supper next before heading back to stacks until 11pm, then a gentleman’s club near the home I rented in SB. The memories !! Damn good potatoe !!
. . . to Nova at home during the 1981-82 season when we missed a layup at the buzzer on a full court throw-in and dish to a cutter. The play began with 3 seconds left. Digger was absolutely crushed by that final sequence (and the weight of an ever-worsening season) in the post-game locker room.