Status Note

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 […]

The Cleveland Indians came into 1996 looking to take the final step. The long-suffering franchise became a contender in the strike-shortened year of 1994. In 1995, they broke through and won their first American League pennant in over forty years. The 1996 edition was poised to go all the way—until an October disappointment did them […]

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, […]