The opening weekend of the NCAA Tournament is defined by chaos and possibility. By the Sweet 16, that uncertainty begins to narrow, and the tournament gets its focus. Our Road to the Final Four series begins here, focusing on the fifteen games that lead us to a national champion. The Road to the Final Four […]
DePaul followed up their Final Four run of 1979 with a magnificent regular season in 1980 that earned them a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. But it ended with a heartbreaking loss in the Round of 32. The 1981 DePaul basketball team was loaded and came out hungry for redemption. From late November to […]
In 1999, UConn and Duke staged a great national championship battle, that UConn won. In 2004, these two programs again spent the regular season on a collision course with each other and met in the Final Four. The Huskies again won and then secured a national title. Let’s look back on the road that UConn […]
The great baseball town of St. Louis was on a dry spell coming into the 1979 season. Since their run of 1967-68, when the Cardinals won consecutive National League pennants and a World Series, the franchise had struggled—only four winning seasons over the ensuing decade. The 1979 edition of the St. Louis Cardinals had a […]
By 1981, Notre Dame basketball was a signature national brand. Over the previous seven seasons, Digger Phelps had taken them to seven NCAA Tournaments, six Sweet 16s and the Final Four in 1978. They had a senior-laden squad in the fold and were primed for more. The Irish did indeed have another strong year in […]
The Texas Rangers came into existence in 1972, after a decade of mostly bad baseball as the Washington Senators. The relocation to the Dallas area didn’t bring a lot in the way of success. There was a brief burst of winning baseball in 1974 under Billy Martin, but Billy quickly ran into trouble with the […]
Marquette basketball came into the 1981 season on a run of ten straight NCAA Tournament appearances, and in an era when March Madness was considerably more restrictive than it is today. But 1980 had shown some warning signs, as they slipped to the bubble and were blown out in the first round. In 1981, the […]
In an era when the NFC East had some great teams—Roger Staubach’s Dallas Cowboys and the legendary Over-The-Hill Gang of the Washington Redskins, it was actually the old St. Louis Cardinals football team who came into 1976 as the two-time defending division champs. Coached by Don Coryell, the Cardinals were a contender again in ’76. […]
Marquette had been a national power going back to 1968. Under the leadership of the charismatic Al McGuire, the Warriors made the Final Four in 1974 and won a national title in 1977. When McGuire handed the reins to his top assistant, Hank Raymonds, Marquette continued to be a legitimate national contender in 1978 and […]
It was a new era for the Cincinnati Bengals in 1976. The legendary Paul Brown had retired as head coach after taking the Bengals to the playoffs in his final campaign. Bill Johnson, promoted from offensive line coach, was the new man in charge. But while Cincinnati continued to be a good team and a […]
The 1976 Baltimore Colts came into the season looking to prove the magic of a year earlier hadn’t been a fluke. In ’75, the Colts shocked the NFL in their first year under head coach Ted Marchibroda, by winning their final nine games and dethroning Don Shula’s Miami Dolphins in the AFC East that the […]
After a breakout season in 1977, when they won 94 games, the Texas Rangers slipped a bit in ’78, contending, but settling for 87 wins. The 1979 season saw the slippage continue. After a strong first half raised hopes, the Rangers fell out of the race, and it foreshadowed more significant decline in the immediate […]