The date: October 26, 1973
The setting: Notre Dame’s pep rally the night before the USC football game
The speaker: Irish co-captain Willie Townsend
The backdrop: Undefeated Notre Dame had not beaten USC in its last six games, a 0-4-2 run punctuated by Anthony Davis’ six touchdown performance in the Los Angeles Coliseum in November of 1972. The Fighting Irish were tired of losing to USC. ND fans were tired of losing to USC. Everyone knew that the undefeated Irish had the ability to beat the undefeated Trojans, but did they have the mindset to beat the boogie men?
Townsend stepped to the podium and began to speak. He was so excited that he could barely string two sentences together. He wasn’t making a lot of sense when he paused, gave up on any idea of delivering his full speech, and shouted, “The time is now!”
The crowd went crazy at the display of raw emotion and intensity that carried over to the next day’s 23-14 victory in the noisiest Notre Dame Stadium I have ever experienced in person, and it continued through an undefeated season that ended with the legendary 24-23 championship clinching victory over Alabama in the Sugar Bowl.
Fast forward to March 19, 2015 and the weeks to follow. The Fighting Irish are tired of early exits from the NCAA Tournament. ND fans are tired of early exits from the NCAA Tournament. Everyone knows that the Irish have the ability to make a run this year, but do they have the mindset to beat the tournament boogie man?
The time is now!
The Earliest Prediction of Success
Notre Dame is a trendy pick to make a round of eight game against Kentucky after beating Duke and North Carolina to win the ACC Tournament, but nobody predicted such a run at the beginning of December… except for Fairleigh Dickinson head coach Greg Herenda. On his way to the door after his postgame press conference following Notre Dame’s 75-57 victory that night, Herenda stopped, turned to the room full of media creatures awaiting Mike Brey’s arrival, and said, “This is a tournament team, and I mean a deep run in the tournament team.”
Seeding
Nowadays how well the selection committee did or didn’t seed the tournament gets a lot more conversation than who was snubbed.
I certainly understand some of the complaints. Duke won neither its conference’s regular season nor its tournament championship, yet it got a #1 seed. The Big 12 got twelve teams’ worth of love for its ten team league.
Here’s a way to look at it, at least a way to look at it if you respect Ken Pomeroy’s rankings. I found exactly one first round game where the lower seed had a higher Pomeroy ranking – #10 seed Ohio State is Pomeroy’s 22nd ranked team; and the Buckeyes’ opponent, #7 seed VCU, is Pomeroy’s 30th ranked team. Even if I missed one or two others, that’s a pretty good swipe at the first 32 games.
Tournament Fun
If, like me, you watch almost every game for at least a few minutes; and as you do, you start to categorize teams – passing teams, power teams, defense-first teams, etc.
Do you include these categories?
Cockroach Teams: They play ugly basketball, but they are really hard to kill. North Carolina State is a cockroach team.
Vortex Teams: They’re stupid, but they manage to get otherwise disciplined opponents to be stupid too. Play a vortex team’s style a little; and next thing you know, you’re in the middle of the vortex spinning and flailing but unable to escape. Baylor is a vortex team.
Do you have any categories to add?
Norming, Performing
Last week I wrote about this team in the context of Bruce Tuckman’s model of team development. My analysis of the situation had the Irish as new entrants to the third stage, Norming, with a need to advance quickly to the fourth stage, Performing. I wrote:
It will be good news for Irish fans if the team is ready for the performing stage between now and the end of the ACC Tournament. The players have done the hard work required to get there. If they remember their goal, if they remain the unselfish group that is, one man after another, willing to do whatever is needed to win, Notre Dame fans’ trepidation about the NCAA tournament will finally be eased.
The team got there two days ahead of schedule. The time is now.
Irish tool says:
Louisville is definitely a cockroach team this year.
Mark Johnson says:
I’d add “flywheel team” as in one that is committed to controlling tempo in order to beat you. More than just slowing you down or speeding you up, they force you to execute at both ends of the floor. To me, Wisconsin fits that mold and KO correctly suggested that Virginia is in that club as well.
Paul Niland says:
There is the ‘Exploding Star’ team: see Davidson ’08 or Roosevelt Chapman ’84; the ‘Nightmare Prep’ game: This is the team that plays a style you have not seen all year – that would be West Virginia. They are full court all game. Completely relentless.
Kevin Byrnes says:
We will have to deliver the same kind of determination that 1973 team had. We escaped today, though there was a good push through the midway point of the 2nd half. (That USC game is one among my most vivid memories of an ND home FB game…standin’ in the soph section.)
canuck75 says:
The Anthony Davis nightmare was 1974. I was there, crowing a little too loudly at halftime (24-6 ?)us.
On the other hand I was also there in 73. My pal Eric Penick never looked better.
Bernie P., ND '74 says:
I was also there in ’73, in the Senior Section. The most exciting think I’ve ever witnessed in sports was Penick’s 85 yard run at the start of the 2nd half. Fabulous, just Fabulous!
NCHDomer says:
I, too, was there for both the ’73 and ’74 games. The ’73 game was the greatest, and loudest, game I ever attended at Notre Dame Stadium. Tom Clements remains my favorite ND player. While it seems now the tradition is for students to stand during the games, my recollection is that we did not do that back then. The first and only time I remember it happening during my school years was the ’73 SC game. And one bit of trivia: the USC Trojan Marching Band made its first trip to Notre Dame that year. Also, the band played Frankenstein, a current Rock & Roll radio hit, which were not really performed by marching bands at that time. In the liner notes of the recent anniversary CD put out by the SC Band, it references that the ND students gave the band a 3 minute standing ovation after the song. I seem to recall that we did. I have liked listening to the Trojan Band ever since then. Cool game. Cool opponent. Cool rivalry.
TplDomr90 says:
How about Connaughton’s mindset of “we’re not going home today!” backed with his subsequent performance. Leaders lead!