Nine games into the 2015-16 basketball season with a 7-2 record, I still don’t know what kind of a season to expect. The losses aren’t egregiously bad, but both were winnable games that slipped through Notre Dame’s fingers when they had chances to win. It’s hard to tell if this is simply last year’s team…
Before the Fighting Irish tip off the season opener in Purcell Pavilion on Friday, the 2015 ACC Championship banner will be unfurled. It will be the last chance to cherish the postseason run of what arguably has become Notre Dame’s most beloved basketball team, a tough and competitive group that was likable at every step…
Three weeks ago, I documented the Notre Dame basketball team’s progress over the course of the season within the construct of Bruce Tuckman’s stages of team development. You will recall that Tuckman, a professor of psychology at Ohio State, identified a model for the stages of team development and successful leader behaviors for each. His…
The score was 55-55. Butler’s Roosevelt Jones had the ball with a standing dribble at quarter court as the clock wound down. Pat Connaughton stood in a defensive stance as he waited just outside the free throw line for Jones to drive for what he hoped would be a game winning shot. Jones had been…
Mike Royko never said, “Some things you wonder, some things you think, and some things you just know.” But he probably would have picked the Irish to make the Sweet 16. He was smart like that. Just to give you a little perspective on what you’re seeing right now, Notre Dame started allowing its men’s…