This one was great

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.