Marquette basketball came into 1968 gaining steam under the leadership of head coach Al McGuire. Starting from close to rock bottom in 1965, Al had gradually improved the Warrior program and in 1967 reached the finals of the NIT. In ’68, Marquette took the next step—they reached an NCAA Tournament that then took just 25 […]
St. John’s basketball came into 1980 on a run of four straight NCAA Tournament appearances. In 1979, a young team finished strong and got on a Cinderella run in March that brought them within a basket of the Final Four. The 1980 edition of St. John’s basketball was a better team, but some bracket inequities […]
St. John’s basketball was on a good run coming into the 1979 season. In an era when making the NCAA Tournament was considerably more difficult than it is today, Lou Carnesecca’s program had earned three consecutive NCAA bids. In ’79, after playing mediocre basketball for much of the year, they made it four straight NCAA […]
1986 marked the second year of Joey Meyer’s tenure at DePaul, since taking over from his father, the legendary Ray. After seven years running with the national elite at the end of Ray’s career, Joey’s first year of 1985 was a step back, as they scraped into the NCAA Tournament and lost in the first […]
It was a new era for DePaul basketball in 1985. The legendary Ray Meyer had stepped down after over four decades on the sidelines and handed the reins to his son Joey. Meyer the Younger was taking over a program that was on a high. DePaul had run with the national elite for the past […]
Ray Meyer was an iconic figure in college basketball. He had been on the sidelines at DePaul since 1942 and guided the program through peaks, valleys, and a changing landscape for over four decades. Some of his best teams came at the end of his career, from the Final Four trip of 1979 to a […]
After running with the elites of college basketball for five straight years, DePaul stepped back and retooled in 1983. A program that had reached the Final Four in 1979, and been a #1 seed in 1980, 1981 and 1982 (albeit subject to serious March disappointment), failed to make the NCAA Tournament in ’83, as veteran […]
DePaul basketball was on a high coming into the 1982 season, yet also a program with a lot to prove. They had made the Elite Eight in 1978, the Final Four in 1979, and went to both the 1980 and 1981 NCAA Tournament ranked #1 in the country. But those latter two years ended with […]
Notre Dame basketball came into 1985 after three seasons of rebuilding. Following the eight years of 1974-81 where Digger Phelps had them routinely contending with the nation’s elite, the Irish had fallen on hard times. 1982 was a losing season. In 1983 and 1984, they started to win again but settled for NIT bids at […]
Hank Raymonds had long been a stabilizing force for Marquette basketball. A coach acknowledged for this tactical shrewdness, he was Al McGuire’s righthand man during the program’s glory years, which included a Final Four trip in 1974 and a national title in 1977. After McGuire’s retirement, which combined with changing winds in college basketball that […]
The Marquette basketball program came into the 1982 season needing a comeback year. In 1981, a ten-year streak of NCAA Tournament bids had ended. The program, then one of the Catholic independents of the Midwest, was struggling in a new world where the Big East was rising and cutting off old recruiting pipelines. In 1982, […]
Providence basketball had improved each season since Dave Gavitt took over as head coach in 1970. Gavitt started with a winning season. In 1971, Gavitt’s Friars won 20 games and reached the NIT—a signature achievement in an era when only 25 schools made the NCAA Tournament field and just 16 went to the NIT. In […]