Remembering Notre Dame's Overshadowed March
An NIT berth this March was described as a “kick in the gut,” by Notre Dame head coach Mike Brey and his troops, although all indications are they are making the most of it while advancing to Saturday’s second-round matchup versus Penn State.
However, 45 years ago this month, Notre Dame’s performance in the NIT helped propel it into one of the Golden Ages of its era from 1974-81 with a school record eight consecutive NCAA Tournament bids.
When ranking Notre Dame’s “Greatest Marches In March,” that 1973 NIT would rank behind only the 1978 Final Four and the 2015 ACC Tournament title — flip a coin on which of the two three-game victory streaks were more impressive. The latter would be if you also include the march shortly thereafter to the Elite Eight.
The 1973 team also won three in a row in the NIT when the 16-team field was a prestigious event. Yet it remains overshadowed in the school’s annals because of how the NIT is undermined today.
Back in 1973, only 25 teams made the NCAA Tournament, which was limited to conference champions and a few at-large independents. That meant that league runners-up who would be top two or three seeds in the current NCAA Tournament format went to the NIT.
Also, the 16 teams back then played all their games in Madison Square Garden. It was such a prestigious event that n 1970 Marquette head coach Al McGuire even turned down an NCAA bid with a 22-3 record and top-10 ranking because of what he believed was placing his team in an unfair location. He opted for the NIT, which his team won.
Here's some backdrop for context about the 1973 NIT.
The previous season (1971-72) under first-year head coach Digger Phelps , Notre Dame finished 6-20. Two prime reasons were sophomore center John Shumate was a medical redshirt while battling a blood clot, while the freshmen backcourt of Gary Brokaw and Dwight Clay was not allowed to suit up for the varsity because it was the final season of the NCAA’s freshmen ineligibility rule.
When the trio joined the 1972-73 Irish team, which also had junior Gary Novak and sophomore Pete Crotty as the starting forwards, Notre Dame assembled the nation’s toughest schedule, and it showed with a 1-6 start.
“At that point, I was thinking of attending embalming school,” joked Phelps, the son of an undertaker, whose record at Notre Dame fell to 7-26.
Then suddenly, it began to click. In January the Irish defeated Kansas and ended Marquette’s 81-game home winning streak at home under McGuire. In February it won at No. 11 St. John’s, and on the last day of the regular season, March 3, it upset No. 19 South Carolina.
The Irish finished their last 19 games on a 14-5 run for a 15-11 final record.
NIT Glory
After the 25-team NCAA field was assembled, the 16-team NIT extended a bid to Notre Dame — which owned the worst record in the field. Popular belief was the Irish made it only because of its drawing power in New York City, but Phelps rightfully pointed to the land-mine schedule and quality victories as justification.
The field was replete with outstanding major conference runners-up such as 21-4 Minnesota, 20-6 Alabama, 21-5 Missouri, and even powers such North Carolina under Dean Smith and Louisville with Denny Crum — both of whom were in the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament the year prior.
• Notre Dame’s first-round matchup was against USC, its arch rival in football and the typical runner-up in the Pac-8 to the UCLA dynasty. Even in 1971, the 24-2 Trojans could not be invited to the NCAA Tournament because they didn't win their league.
USC head coach Bob Boyd had another problem when he saw that the NIT would open Saturday, March 17.
"Can you imagine?" Boyd asked, “The Pac-8 finally gets a team in the NIT and we draw Notre Dame on St. Patrick's Day. Maybe we shouldn't show up.”
Boyd was more incensed after the 69-65 Irish victory when USC had 28 fouls called against it compared to Notre Dame’s 10, which resulted in 23 free throws made by the Irish and one by USC.
• In the quarterfinals three days later at MSG versus Louisville, Notre Dame’s “Iron Five” starting lineup combined for 199:59 of a possible 200 minutes playing time — with the lone substitution coming when Brokaw fouled out with one second left in the contest in the 79-71 Irish upset conquest. Shumate was 9-of-9 from the field.
• The run was expected to end in the semifinals against tourney favorite North Carolina, whose top two scorers were George Karl and Bobby Jones, well-known names in future NBA circles, plus star freshman Mitch Kupchak, who also would excel in the NBA as a player and executive. Smith liberally substituted players — he had 31 lineup changes the previous game — and was projected to wear down the Iron Five.
The Tar Heels built an early nine-point lead, but Irish football wide receiver Willie Townsend provided a spark off the bench, Clay found a second-half rhythm and Shumate converted his first 11 field-goal attempts — giving him a school record 20 in a row — before missing his final attempt in the 78-71 triumph.
In three NIT games, “The Big Shu” had made 28 of his 32 field goal tries, a staggering 87.5 percent.
Heartbreak
In the championship game the next day vs. Virginia Tech, Notre Dame was finally the favorite after playing the role of underdog in the first three contests.
The Gobblers, as they were mainly known then, had won their three games by a total of four points, but even in their home state were referred to as “too small, too white and too Virginian.”
With eight minutes remaining, Notre Dame had built a comfortable double-digit lead before Virginia Tech cut it to 78-77. With only seconds remaining, Brokaw ostensibly sealed the game with two free throws to make it 80-77 (there was no three-point line) — but an Irish lane violation wiped out the second free throw.
Tech center Craig Lieder then knocked down a jumper just beyond the foul line at the horn to send the game into overtime.
Notre Dame appeared to have the game in hand again by taking a 91-87 lead in OT with 55 seconds left, but then Virginia Tech 5-10 guard Bobby Stevens made a basket-and-one to cut the deficit to 91-90.
Brokaw, who had already scored 23 points, was fouled and missed the one-and-one. After securing the rebound, the Gobblers called time out with 12 seconds left.
The Irish defended well and forced Stevens into an errant miss with about five seconds remaining, setting up a scramble for the loose ball that Tech’s Allan Bristow, a future pro, managed to tip out to Stevens about 23 feet away. With a lunging Townsend barely missing the attempt, Stevens’ desperate, high-arced shot hit nothing but net as the horn sounded for a 92-91 victory.
The Roanoke Times called the nationally televised win “one of the greatest sports victories in the history of the commonwealth.”
Shumate, who finished the contest with 28 points, was named the Tournament MVP.
Epilogue
Phelps and the Irish were greeted with a heroes’ welcome back on campus despite the defeat.
The sleeping giant was out of its slumber, and the next season the Irish finished the regular season 24-2, highlighted by ending UCLA’s NCAA record 88-game winning streak and temporarily moving to No. 1 itself for the first time in the program’s history. Recruiting momentum also was flourishing as the Irish remained a perennial top-10 operation the next eight years.
That NIT run in 1973 meant so much back then to the school.
Forty-five years later, finishing with the NIT title that almost was in 1973 would seem apropos to begin another memorable and prosperous run in years to come.
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