DePaul was coming off a disappointing season in 1977 where injuries prevented the Blue Demons from gaining any consistency. Ray Meyer’s program had been consistently running a step behind Notre Dame and Marquette, their rivals as independent Catholic basketball programs in the Midwest. In 1978, DePaul made a huge step forward, joining the Irish and […]
Marquette basketball was facing a new world in 1978, one without Al McGuire. Their great head coach had gone out in a blaze of glory in 1977, winning the national championship after announcing his retirement. Al’s top assistant, Hank Raymonds, was promoted to the head job. Throughout the regular season, it looked like nothing had […]
The 1977 Marquette basketball team had come off a strong run in 1976 that ended in a tournament loss to Bob Knight’s undefeated Indiana team in a regional final. Al McGuire, later to gain fame as an NBC commentator was the head coach. McGuire was out of New York, colorful, witty and bombastic and in the days before the Big East got control of the New York area, was able to successfully recruit the Big Apple and get talent back to the Midwest
The DePaul basketball program came into the 1977 season on a high. They were coming off a Sweet 16 trip in ’76, a run that ended an 11-year NCAA Tournament drought. The key players were mostly back in the fold. But while the program was trending in the right direction, 1977 proved to be one […]
Notre Dame basketball came into the 1977 season with a veteran team that was coming off three consecutive Sweet 16 appearances. The Irish continued to enjoy success and again made it to the regional semifinal round of the NCAA Tournament. But a roller-coaster ride in the regular season ended with a heartbreaking defeat in March. […]
Bob Knight came to Indiana in 1972, inheriting a program with a proud history and coming off a 17-win season, but otherwise having not done a lot in recent years. By 1973, Knight was in the Final Four. In 1974, Indiana tied for the Big Ten title but with only one NCAA bid per conference […]
DePaul basketball came into the 1976 season needing a breakthrough. Ray Meyer’s program hadn’t made the NCAA Tournament since 1965. While making the NCAA field was considerably more difficult than it is today—only 32 teams would make it in ’76, and that was the result of a recent expansion—it still had the Blue Demons lagging […]
Digger Phelps’ Notre Dame program had started to become a national force in 1974, when they ended the 88-game winning streak of John Wooden’s UCLA and subsequently made the Sweet 16. They returned to the regional semifinal round of the NCAA Tournament in 1975. The 1976 Irish basketball season was—for better or for worse—more of […]
Al McGuire successfully integrated several new players into the Marquette lineup in 1975 while keeping the Warriors on the national landscape. In 1976, that growth continued. Marquette was again a nationally elite team. In fact, this team came very close to perfection and was only blocked from the Final Four by a team that actually […]
Ray Meyer spent the early-to-mid 1970s gradually building the DePaul basketball program back into prominence at a time when Al McGuire’s Marquette and Digger Phelps’ Notre Dame teams ruled the roost for Catholic college hoops in the Midwest. The 1975 DePaul edition was getting closer—while they wouldn’t what make was then just a 32-team NCAA […]
Notre Dame basketball came into the 1975 season off a ’74 campaign that had marked a historic breakthrough. The breakthrough came from Digger Phelps, in his third season, getting to the NCAA Tournament for the first time and reaching the Sweet 16. The historic part came from ending the 88-game winning streak of John Wooden’s […]
Marquette was coming off a breakthrough Final Four appearance in 1974, but Al McGuire’s program had some rebuilding to do. Maurice Lucas, their great power forward, had left early for the NBA. The only senior starter, center Jerry Homan, didn’t average in double figures. The Warriors didn’t match their ’74 performance. But with the emergence […]