David Rivers To Enter Notre Dame Ring Of Honor
The lone player in Notre Dame history to lead the basketball team in scoring and assists all four years, 1984-88 guard David Rivers will become the 11th Fighting Irish basketball representative to be inducted into its Ring of Honor that was begun at Purcell Pavilion in 2010.
The ceremony will occur at halftime of Notre Dame’s contest with Syracuse on Jan. 21, 2017.
Rivers was the linchpin who led head coach Digger Phelps’ program out of a three-year slump from 1981-84 in which the Fighting Irish were 46-37 during the regular season and received no NCAA Tournament bids. Once Rivers enrolled as a freshman in 1984, Notre Dame was selected to four straight NCAA Tournaments while posting regular-season marks of 20-8, 23-5, 22-7 and 20-8.
• As a freshman, he helped the Irish win their first NCAA Tournament game in four years while pacing the team in scoring (15.8 points per game) and assists (127), and earning the “Quick Silver” moniker from basketball analyst Al McGuire. Highlights included a victory over Indiana, led by guard Steve Alford, and connecting on a jumper as time expired in a 63-62 win at Marquette.
• As a sophomore, Rivers topped the team in scoring (16.7) and assists (138) during a season that saw the Irish finish No. 10 nationally, highlighted by wins against UCLA, Maryland and at No. 8 Syracuse before getting upset as a No. 3 seed by Arkansas Little-Rock in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
• His most amazing season occurred as a junior. On Aug. 24, 1986, he was thrown from the passenger seat of a van that swerved to avoid a drunk driver, and he suffered a 15-inch gash across his abdomen. An emergency surgery at Elkhart General Hospital saved his life after he had lost a massive amount of blood. Yet with his basketball future in doubt, Rivers returned to the court just 90 days later to play 34 minutes in Notre Dame’s season-opening game of 1986-87.
That February, Rivers would lead upset wins against No. 1 North Carolina, No. 15 Duke and No. 4 DePaul to propel the Irish into the NCAA Tournament, where with two more wins they advanced to the Sweet 16. His 15.7 scoring average and 163 assists paced the team again while earning honorable mention All-America notice.
• Among his highlights as a senior was a victory over eventual national champ Kansas, led by Danny Manning. Rivers earned second- and third-team All-America notice while averaging 22.0 points per game and dishing out 158 assists.
Pat Garrity (1994-98) is the only other player to lead the Irish in scoring all four seasons. Rivers finished his career with 2,058 and 586 assists and remains sixth on the all-time chart in scoring, and fourth in assists and steals (201).
A first-round NBA Draft selection in 1988 of the Los Angeles Lakers and the 1997 Euroleague Championship Most Valuable Player, his Olympacos in Greece became the first Greek team to win the Euroleague Championship.
Rivers currently runs “David Rivers Camps,” a program designed to encourage higher learning in pursuit of academic excellence through clinics, motivational speaking and camps in Italy, France, Greece and Rivers’ hometown of Jersey City, N.J.
Previous Ring of Honor inductees include Austin Carr, Luke Harangody, Adrian Dantley, Digger Phelps, Tom Hawkins and Troy Murphy for men’s basketball, while Ruth Riley and Skylar Diggins represent the women’s basketball team. This season the women’s team will add current assistant coaches Niele Ivey (Dec. 4) and Beth Cunningham (Jan. 29) to the Ring of Honor as well.
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