Thank You Notre Dame Basketball

Well, Notre Dame's run came to an end.  It was an incredible run.  I would rank this as the second most difficult basketball loss I've ever dealt with as a fan (we're taking my loss in the 1995 5th and 6th grade St. Anthony's CYO Championship Game out of consideration here).  The worst one was Game 7 against the Lakers in 2010.  The Celtics lost a championship they could have won against their biggest rival.  That loss made me angry.  I had a very different reaction to Notre Dame's loss to Kentucky.

After losing to Kentucky, I was filled with two feelings:  sadness and pride.  This was the biggest Notre Dame basketball game of my entire life.  After the biggest Notre Dame football game since January 2, 1989, all I felt was sadness.  You probably know that I dress by mood.  Yesterday I wore a black shirt (sadness), but I also wore a Notre Dame tie (pride).  We didn't lose because we weren't good enough.  We lost because a college basketball game is 40 minutes and Kentucky happened to have two more points than us after 40 minutes.  We were every bit as good as they were and if the game was 38 minutes, we would have won.  If the game was 42 minutes, maybe we come back and win.  Before selection show, my dad asked me which 1 seed I wanted to be with.  My answer was Kentucky.  Because Notre Dame has a history of winning games that nobody expects us to win.  We ended UCLA's winning streak at 88 in 1974 (we were also the last team to beat them before the streak started).  We ended Oklahoma's winning streak in football at 47 in 1957.  I really believed we could beat Kentucky.  We came really close.

We should finish the season ranked in the top 5.  I don't know if that will happen, but we should.  Kentucky and Wisconsin belong ahead of us.  Duke is debatable, but they will be ahead of us.  Michigan State doesn't belong ahead of us unless they win the championship game or lose in overtime against Kentucky, but there's a good chance they will be too.  Villanova doesn't belong ahead of us.  I can live with Arizona ahead of us, but that's debatable too.  Gonzaga, Kansas, and Virginia don't belong ahead of us.  We'll at least be in the top ten, but really we should be in the top five.  We were a legitimate contender for the national championship, but we came up a little short.  I didn't know if I'd ever see a Notre Dame men's basketball team that was this good.  We won the ACC (our first conference championship), 32 games (second most in Notre Dame history behind only the 1908-1909 team, made the Elite 8 (first time since 1979), and we competed with everybody we played.  The only team we didn't compete with was Duke one time and we beat them the other two times we played them.  There was all this talk before the tournament about how we didn't play a good non-conference schedule (and we didn't), but we went 8-2 against teams that made the Sweet 16, 4-2 against teams that made the Elite 8, and 3-2 against teams that made the Final Four.  I am very proud of what this team accomplished this year and the way they competed against Kentucky.

I'm proud of everything Notre Dame stands for.  We have a 100% graduation rate in men's and women's basketball.  Our best player missed all of conference play last year because he was suspended for academic reasons.  It definitely cost us some games, but I'm proud that we do things the way we do.  Kentucky is the exact opposite.  They have a team of hired mercenaries, not real students.  If somebody offered me a chance for Notre Dame and Kentucky to switch places in men's basketball (we get all their success and lack of standards that go along with it), I would laugh in their face.  I'd much rather do things the way we do them regardless of how much we win than do things the way Kentucky does them and win all the time.  This year we proved that we can do things the right way and be a legitimate national championship contender.

I also felt great sadness, but it was different from what I felt after the National Championship Game two years ago.  After that game, I was sad mainly because we played so terribly and we never had a chance.  This time I was sad because we lost and missed out on a Final Four and a legitimate chance at a national championship.  We were 3-1 against Michigan State and Duke.  There's no guarantee that we would have won it all, but we could have beaten Wisconsin too and then we would have played a team that we've already proven we could beat.

There was another reason for the sadness, though.  I was sad that I'll never get to see this team play again.  They played beautiful basketball and it was so much fun to watch.  Jerian Grant was probably the best Notre Dame basketball player of my lifetime.  Pat Connaughton was my favorite Notre Dame basketball player ever (read this story and be ready for it to get suddenly dusty).  And I'll never get to see them play for Notre Dame again.  I'll be rooting for both of them in their professional careers.  For Grant, he'll be in the NBA next year.  I hope the Celtics draft him.  I don't know what's going to happen with Connaughton.  I don't know what he wants to do.  If he wants to play baseball, I hope he has a great career and somehow ends up with the Dodgers.  If he wants to play basketball, he might not make the NBA (but I don't rule it out), but I have to think he could play professionally overseas somewhere.  He can shoot, he plays much bigger than his size, and he's not afraid of anybody.  It was a pleasure to watch him go against much bigger players this year and do a great job of rebounding.  His block against Butler will not be forgotten anytime soon.  His leadership will be missed next year.  Grant and Connaughton did a great job leading late in the game against Butler when Butler had a chance to beat us.  By the way, beating Kentucky would have instantly been my favorite college basketball game of all time, replacing the five overtime win over Louisville two years ago.  Go back and read that post.  It's not surprising that Grant and Connaughton both played huge roles in that win.  Thank you for this year and thank you for everything over the last four years.

This was was on the board in my classroom to greet my students on Monday.

I was not a Mike Brey fan when I was a student.  I was only at Notre Dame for two years and he didn't make the tournament.  Since then, I think he's done a fantastic job.  He took some heat for our lack of success in March, but I always thought it was unfair.  It's a single elimination tournament.  One bad game and your season is done.  If Brey ever left, we could easily be much much worse than we are now.  Before Brey got to the tournament in 2001, we hadn't been there since 1990.  Since Brey took over in 2000-2001, we've only missed the tournament in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2009, and 2014.  We are lucky to have Mike Brey.  What he did with this team this year was masterful.  By the way, I've written about our rivalry with Louisville, but do we now have a rivalry with Duke?  Brey used to be one of Coach K's assistants.  He's the only former Coach K assistant to beat him.  And since we joined the ACC last year, we're 3-1 against Duke.  And speaking of Duke, according to my tournament rankings, I should be rooting for them in the Final Four.  But I find myself rooting for Michigan State.  Let's adjust those and put Duke and North Carolina behind the Big Ten teams.  I do really hate the Big Ten, but I have some respect for Michigan State for being willing to play us in football when the rest of the conference wouldn't.

Notre Dame proved me right about something this year.  People talk about us being at a disadvantage in football because of our academic standards.  I think it's overstated.  Yeah, it's harder for us and we can't get just anybody, be we can get Michael Floyd, Manti Te'o, Jaylon Smith, etc.  But basketball is different.  We cannot get Anthony Davis or Andrew Wiggins or Jahlil Okafor.  We're not going to take players that are going to pretend to be students for a semester when all they really care about is playing in the NBA the next year.  So it's a disadvantage when you can't get the most talented players.  On the other hand, that's a pretty small number of players.  We can get better players than probably at least 90% of teams in Division I.  We can get players that are a notch below the most talented guys, like Demetrius Jackson.  And when you get really talented players that are going to stay for four years, that can be used as an advantage.  We didn't have the talent that Kentucky had, but we built a team that was led by two seniors.  The continuity that you get from players playing together for several years is an advantage.  We could compete with Kentucky or anybody else because of the way the team played together and the leadership of Grant and Connaughton.

I'm excited about the future.  We shouldn't be as good next year without Grant and Connaughton, but I think we'll be a tournament team again.  Maybe we end up in a more favorable bracket (like Michigan State this year) and make another run to the Elite 8 or even further in the tournament next year (not likely, but not impossible).  Going back to Brey, I loved the improvement I saw in some players this year.  Demetrius Jackson showed great improvement from freshman to sophomore year and he'll be our best player next year.  Steve Vasturia got better and better as the year went on.  Bonzie Colson and Zack Auguste improved throughout the year.  Those are going to be four good players for us next year.  I expect Brey will be able to find a way to get a few more guys to make contributions.  We won't be able to replace Grant's talent, but Jackson is going to be really really good.  Pat Connaughton is going to be especially difficult to replace.  We were undersized this year, but we were able to do it because Connaughton could match up with bigger guys.  They couldn't guard him on the perimeter, but he could rebound with them.  So do we play small again next year and sacrifice a rebounder or do we play bigger and sacrifice a shooter?  I have confidence that Brey will figure it out.

This was the best Notre Dame basketball team of my lifetime.  I hope I'll get to see another championship caliber team soon.  I loved this team and I'm sad I don't get to see them again.  Playing like a champion doesn't always result in a national championship, but they did play like a champion.  Thank you Mike Brey, Jerian Grant, Pat Connaughton, and everybody else.

Two Arenas, Three Days, Seven Games, Ten Teams

I think this was the fourth straight year I've attended the Big East Tournament  (see my posts from 2013 and 2014).  For the second straight year, I bought tickets for the entire tournament.  The ACC Tournament changed its schedule (read:  ESPN changed the ACC Tournament's schedule) so that all of the Big East Tournament overlapped with the ACC Tournament.  So I missed most of Notre Dame's run to the ACC Championship, but I didn't care.  Notre Dame had more important games to win in the real tournament.  And I love the Big East Tournament.  Last year, I went to all four nights.  That was a little much.  So I sold my tickets for Wednesday night and Thursday afternoon and went on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights.  And I also went to the Atlantic 10 Tournament at Barclays Center on Saturday afternoon.

Thursday night I got to see Georgetown and Creighton, followed by Xavier and Butler.  I got to the Garden a little early.  Vin was joining me and he got there shortly after the start of the first game.  Of course, he brought two large beers up to the seats with him.  It was good to see Vin.  I hadn't seen him since his engagement party in September.  I'm looking forward to his bachelor party and wedding in May.  We probably drank a little too much beer considering it was a Thursday, but it was a good time.  I was watching the games, but I can't say I was paying particularly close attention until the end of the first game.  Creighton gave Georgetown a game.  Creighton led 51-45 with about six minutes left, but they couldn't hold the lead.  They had some opportunities late, but they were hurt by turnovers.  D'Vauntes Smith-Rivera led the way with 25 for Georgetown as they won 60-55.  Nobody else had more than 10 for Georgetown.  It was the end of a rough season for Creighton.  I hope they can compete in the Big East now that their coach doesn't have son that's a dominant college basketball player on the team.  Butler, on the other hand, showed great improvement in their second season in the Big East.  They were the three seed in the Big East and they took on Xavier in game 2 of the night.  I really didn't pay particularly close attention.  Vin and I left maybe eight minutes into the second half.  We missed a good finish, though.  Xavier won 67-61 in overtime even though they didn't have anybody score more than 13.  Whatever, I had plenty more basketball to see the next two days.  I got home around 12:30.

My view for the Big East Tournament

I did not want to wake up on Friday morning even after setting my alarm for about a half hour later than I usually do.  But once I got to school, I felt surprisingly good.  I met my brother Tom at Penn Station for another double header.  The day before, I had been rooting for Villanova, St. John's, and Georgetown (all of those teams lost their first Big East Tournament game the year before) just because Madison Square Garden is more fun with those teams playing.  This year, Villanova and Georgetown came through, but St. John's, not so much.  St. John's lost to Providence, who wasn't a terrible option, but they're not going to bring as many fans as St. John's would.  Providence won the tournament last year and they had a couple of players I wanted to see.  Kris Dunn was the Big East Co-Player of the Year and LaDontae Henton was impressive in last year's tournament.  Henton was also the Big East's leading scorer and he scored 38 points on 19 shots against Notre Dame in November.  Villanova and Providence played the first game.  Villanova had the other Co-Player of the Year, Ryan Arcidiacono.  Dunn had himself a game.  He had 22 points, 9 assists, and 7 rebounds.  Henton and Arcidiacono were very quiet.  Villanova led pretty much the whole game, but Providence tied it late.  Unfortunately, the refs put Arcidiacono on the line with a terrible call with 3.1 seconds left.  He made both shots to give Villanova a 63-61 lead.  I had been rooting for Villanova just because I wanted to see them on Saturday also, but after that foul call I was hoping Providence would find a way to win it.  They actually had a nice little hook and ladder type play that got a pretty good look for Henton (considering that they only had 3.1 seconds left) that would have won the game, but he missed.

The second game was Georgetown and Xavier.  Again, I was rooting for Xavier just because they'd have a lot more fans there the next night for the championship game than Xavier would.  Georgetown's big man Josh Smith got off to a good start.  But it was Xavier's big man Matt Stainbrook (or "Stainy," as he likes to be called) who controlled most of the first half.  He finished with 20 points and 9 rebounds.  Tom and I left in the second half.  I think it was at the under-8:00 TV timeout.  Georgetown looked totally dead.  I found out on my train that Georgetown had made a run.  Nobody saw that coming, but Xavier held on 65-63.  That brings me to one of the best and worst things about the Big East Tournament:  double headers.  I love getting to watch two basketball games, but I end up missing a lot of ends of second games.  I often end up looking at my watch a lot during the first game and rooting for a quick game more than anything else.  On Thursday night, I wanted to get home early because I had work the next day.  On Friday night, I just wanted to get home early because I was tired after a long week of work and being out late the night before.  A Saturday night double header would be great, but that doesn't happen for the Big East Tournament.

A double header wasn't an issue on Saturday afternoon.  The Atlantic 10 semifinals started early enough that Tom and I could watch both games and then make it to Madison Square Garden for the Big East championship game.  I had this idea last year, but I didn't do it.  This year I was paying attention on Stubhub to Atlantic 10 Tournament prices.  I ended up buying tickets for the entire tournament with the plan of selling everything except for the semifinals and maybe the finals.  I did end up selling all my tickets except for the semifinals and my net cost for two tickets for the semifinals was $6.80.  So that worked out pretty well.  I got there a little later than I planned on because I missed the train I wanted to get in Hicksville because I couldn't find a place to park (Hicksville gave me a lot more train options coming home than Huntington or Greenlawn).  But I still made it in time for the start of the first game.  When I got there, Tom was in the Barclays Center meditation room.  I would make fun of him, but he made fun of the meditation room and used it to charge his phone.  The first game was VCU-Davidson.  It was a much smaller crowd than the Big East Tournament.  Most of the lower level was full, but most of the upper level was curtained off.  There were only a handful of people sitting close to the middle of the court up high.  Despite the small crowd, VCU's fans and band were boisterous.  Davidson got off to a really good start (they led 16-4), but then VCU turned it on.  VCU led 44-28 at halftime.  At some point during the first half, I got went to the Boomer and Carton Kitchen and got a Border Dog.  It was okay, but it didn't taste as good as it looked or sounded.  Davidson made a little run in the second half, but VCU ended up winning 93-73.  Mo Alie-Cox was their most impressive player with 18 points and 8 rebounds.  By the way, after seeing Davidson get pounded by VCU, I still picked them to go to the Sweet 16.  The lesson, as always, I'm an idiot.

The Border Dog.  It had guacamole, salsa, and cheese on it.

The second game was Rhode Island-Dayton.  Rhode Island had beaten George Washington (Tom's alma mater) the night before.  I was rooting for Dayton since it was the only Catholic school in the semifinals.  It was a much closer game than the first one, but neither team was as fun to watch as VCU.  Rhode Island had the best name of the day though, with Gilvydas Biruta (beating out Dayton's Scoochie Smith).  He was their best player with 14 points and 9 rebounds, but he got in foul trouble.  I thought Rhode Island handled the end of the game very poorly.  They kept him on the bench and they took too long to foul when they needed to late.  Dayton had a very balanced attack.  Only seven guys played for them.  Six scored and they had 12, 10, 9, 9, 8, and 8.  Dayton ended up holding on for a 56-52 win.

My view for the Atlantic 10 semifinals.  I would prefer to sit near the middle of the court, but I can't complain for the price I paid.

We got the subway right outside Barclays Center and headed to Madison Square Garden.  Tom went to some hippie vegan place to eat and I looked for a place at Penn Station.  I passed Moe's Southwest Grill.  I had never eaten there before and I didn't plan on it, but I looked at the menu and their vegetarian burrito was called the Art Vandalay.  I didn't have a choice.  It was fine, but it wasn't as good as a vegetarian burrito at Chipotle.  Tom and I met up at the seats for the game between Villanova and Xavier.  It was pretty much a Villanova home game.  It seemed like it was a 20:1 ratio of Villanova fans to Xavier fans.  It wasn't much of a game.  Stainy didn't have it.  He only had 4 points and 3 rebounds.  Villanova won easily.  Ryan Arcidiacono had another quiet game (3 points, 3 rebounds, 1 assist), but this one was never in doubt.  Dylan Ennis had 16 points and 6 rebounds and Josh Hart had 15 points and 7 rebounds off the bench.  Hart was named tournament MVP.  I was watching the first half of Notre Dame-North Carolina on my phone.  Tom left a little early in the second half.  I wasn't going to leave early, but it wasn't as exciting as watching Notre Dame win the ACC Championship at a crappy bar in Penn Station.

So that was it.  I don't know about going to the Atlantic 10 Tournament again next year, but I definitely won't rule it out.  That will probably depend on whether or not I can get a great deal on tickets again.  I'll be back next year at least for two nights of the Big East Tournament (I would say three again, but my mom's birthday might interfere next year).  Hopefully I'll miss another Notre Dame ACC Championship.

2015 Tournament Power Rankings

Last year I did my rankings of the NCAA Tournament teams by how much I wanted to see them win.  I started with Creighton at number one and went all the way to Michigan at 70 (out of 68 teams).  The good news for this year is that Notre Dame is in the tournament and Michigan is going to score as many points in the tournament as they scored against Notre Dame in football last season (0).  And Syracuse is not in the tournament either.  In the words of Hubie Brown, this tournament has TREMENDOUS upside potential.  This year, I'm going in reverse order.  You already know who number one is.  Here we go.

68.  Kentucky
67.  Louisville
These are the only two teams in the tournament that I hate.  Last year I had Kentucky at 65 and Louisville at 66.  I think that was a mistake.  Calipari and his mercenaries should have been below Louisville.  The fact that they're a big favorite this year solidifies it.

66.  Ohio State
They are pretty hateable and they won the championship in football.

65.  Maryland
64.  Wisconsin
63.  Indiana
62.  Iowa
61.  Purdue
60.  Michigan State
The rest of the Big 10.  I hate the Big Ten.  We beat both Purdue and Michigan State and I like Tom Izzo, that's why those two are ahead of the others.

59.  North Carolina
58.  Duke
I'm one of the few people that hates North Carolina more than Duke.  Beating them both in the ACC Tournament was so sweet.

57.  Texas
They'd rank a lot higher if they didn't potentially stand in our way in the second round (which the NCAA calls the third round).

56.  Kansas
Same thing as Texas.  They're a potential Sweet Sixteen opponent.

55.  Georgia
54.  Arkansas
53.  LSU
52.  Ole Miss
SEC schools.  Ole Miss and LSU rank ahead of the other two because of Eli Manning and Shaquille O'Neal

51.  Oregon
Ugly uniforms.

50.  Oklahoma
49.  West Virginia
I put as many schools that play FBS football at the bottom as I could.

48.  SMU
47.  Cincinnati
I don't like Larry Brown.  Cincinnati used to be in the Big East and I always rooted against the non-Catholic schools in the Big East.

46.  Arizona
45.  Utah
I don't have anything against these teams, but they play in a big conference that isn't the Big East or ACC.

44.  Iowa State
43.  Baylor
42.  Oklahoma State
The rest of the Big 12 teams.  Oklahoma State ranks the highest because of current Celtic Marcus Smart

41.  NC State
An ACC team that I don't hate.

40.  Boise State
Nick, my roommate for a semester at Notre Dame, was from Boise.

39.  Wichita State
My lowest ranked team that doesn't play FBS football.  They only rank this low because they could play Notre Dame in the Sweet 16 (and that's what I have).

38.  Northeastern
They would rank a lot higher if we didn't play them on Thursday.

37.  Wyoming
36.  Buffalo
The play FBS football, but just barely.

35.  Wofford
34.  Eastern Washington
Whatever.

33.  Valparaiso
This was a great tournament moment.

32.  UNI
31.  Georgia State
30.  UAB
It would be cool for any of these teams to make a run.  UAB just lost football, so they could use something good.

29.  Virginia
An ACC school that cares about academics and isn't Duke.

28.  Belmont
It's cool that there's a university named after the place where I bought beer when I was a student at Notre Dame.

27.  Stephen F. Austin
26.  Texas Southern
Don't mess with Texas.

25.  New Mexico State
Last year my comment about them was that I couldn't think of a reason to ever visit New Mexico.  Just remember that when you read a post that's coming in about a month.

24.  UC Irvine
They're playing Louisville in the first round and I despise Pitino.

23.  North Dakota State
The idea of a team from North Dakota winning a championship is appealing.

22.  Davidson
I saw them play in Brooklyn.  They lost, but whatever.

21.  San Diego State
For Kyle and Lauren.

20.  Harvard
Same comment as last year:  I don't like the Ivy League, but I respect schools that care about educating their athletes and Harvard obviously does.

19.  Hampton
18.  Robert Morris
17.  Coastal Carolina
16.  Northern Florida
15.  Lafayette
All the 16 seeds except for one.  Lafayette ranks the highest because the Marquis de Lafayette is my favorite Frenchman of all time.

14.  Albany
A bunch of people that used to work for me at camp went to Albany.

13.  VCU
I had them at 32 last year.  What was I thinking?  Shaka Smart is awesome.

12.  UCLA
I love Los Angeles and they're USC's rival.  By the way, does anybody else remember the Tyus Edney play from 20 years ago?  I not only remember it, but I remembered that it took place in Boise.  How did I remember that?  Because I remember Boise State's court.  I hate the stupid standardized courts that they use now so very very much.

11.  BYU
Mormons.

10.  Butler
My rule about rooting against the non-Catholic Big East schools doesn't apply anymore since Butler is the only non-Catholic school in the Big East now.  I love Brad Stevens, but I'm glad he's not there anymore.  We could play them in the second round.  If we lose to them, there are other teams that I'd root ahead of them, but not many.  I wish they weren't a possible second round opponent.

9.  Gonzaga
8.  Dayton
7.  Manhattan
The non-Big East/non-Notre Dame Catholic schools.  Manhattan ranks the highest because they're a 16 seed.  I saw Dayton in person so they come next.

6.  Xavier
5.  Georgetown
4.  Providence
3.  St. John's
2.  Villanova
The Big East Catholic Schools.  I was going to put St. John's at number 2 because I was I thought it was named for St. John the Evangelist (my favorite saint), but Wikipedia says it's named for St. John the Baptist.  Now, he's also awesome, but he's my third favorite St. John behind John the Evangelist and John Paul the Great.  Also, I'm expecting absolutely nothing out of St. John's in the tournament.  I saw Villanova win the Big East Tournament, so they get the number two spot.  And Providence has some players that I like.

1.  Notre Dame
You knew this already.  Go Irish!

How March It Is

Championship Week is a great week.  Winter is finally over and you finally have meaningful college basketball games.  The Ohio Valley Conference led off the championship games and it was really exciting.  I wish I had picked this year to do a running diary of that game.  But much of Championship Week didn't go my way.  Let's review:

Ivy League- I wanted Yale to win because they haven't been in the tournament since 1962 and Harvard has been in the last few years.  Yale beat Harvard and had a chance to clinch the next night against Dartmouth, but they lost a heartbreaker and then they lost yesterday in the tiebreaker against Harvard.

MAAC- I was rooting for Iona against Manhattan because Manhattan made it last year.  Manhattan won, but at least they're also a Catholic school.

CAA- I was rooting for Hofstra so that we'd have a local team in the tournament.  Hofstra hasn't made it since 2001.  They led William and Mary by two in the second overtime of the semifinals, but lost on a three with 0.8 left.  Then I jumped on the William and Mary bandwagon.  They're one of five teams that's been in Division I since the tournament was created that's never made it.  And Lou Holtz coached there.  They lost to Northeastern in the final.

NEC- St. Francis in Brooklyn is another one of the five teams that's been around since the tournament started that's never made it (Northwestern, Army, and the Citadel are the three others).  After defeating the other St. Francis in the semifinals, they lost the championship game at home against Robert Morris.

Southern Conference- Furman had a chance to set the record for most losses by a team that made the tournament.  They were the 10 seed in a 10-team tournament.  They got to the championship game, but lost to the 1 seed (Wofford) by three.

America East- My former school, Stony Brook, was in the championship game for the fourth time in five years.  They've never won it.  I didn't see any of it because I was in the city all day yesterday, but they lost a heartbreaker on a Robert Horry against the Kings-esque three with 1.6 seconds left.  By the way, I have no loyalty to Stony Brook at all, I just wanted the local team in the tournament (I doubt Suffolk County has ever had a tournament team).

Atlantic 10- I'll cover this more later, but I went to the semifinals with my brother Tom, an alum of George Washington.  George Washington led much of their quarterfinal game against Rhode Island, but they let it slip away at the end.

Big East- Again, I'll deal with this in much greater detail in another post, but I was still disappointed.  I went to five of the nine games.  Last year, I went to seven of the nine games.  So that's 12 out of 18 games over two years.  And I haven't seen St. John's.  The Big East has five teams that will bring fans to Madison Square Garden.  Xavier, Marquette, Creighton, DePaul, and Butler don't have the history in the Big East and they're just too far away.  St. John's is the home team.  I want the Garden to be excited for Villanova, Georgetown, Providence, and Seton Hall, but nobody is going to get the Garden as excited as St. John's.  And theyre 0-2 the last two years with both losses coming on Thursday afternoon.  Thanks, St. John's.

So yeah, things weren't going my way.  Except for the ACC Tournament.  I saw very little of the ACC Tournament since I was at the Big East Tournament the last three nights.  I didn't watch Notre Dame's win over Miami at all.  I really didn't expect to win against Duke on Friday night.  I thought of the Lou Holtz quote before a game against Miami, "God is neutral.  He doesn't care who wins, but His mother does."  Only I thought, "God is neutral, but ACC referees in the state of North Carolina are not."  I watched a little bit of it on my phone at Madison Square Garden and then I followed the rest on the train home.  Last night, the Big East Championship Game wasn't very good.  So I watched a lot of the first half on my phone.  We looked good and went into halftime with a nice lead (I think it was five) after a Steve Vasturia three to end the half.  I couldn't get the game to play on my phone in the second half.  By the time the Big East game ended, it looked like we were letting things slip away.  North Carolina had the lead.  I figured I'd just pay attention to the score on my phone on the train home.  There was one that was about to leave right as I got to Penn Station.  I checked my phone again and suddenly we had taken the lead.  I had to find a place to watch.  I found a crappy bar in the corner of the Long Island Railroad area at Penn Station, ordered a Guinness, and watched the last six minutes or so.  It was wonderful.  If you gave me a choice between Notre Dame winning the ACC and every other conference tournament going my way, I'm picking Notre Dame without a second thought.  So it was a good Championship Week.

It tasted like sweet victory.

I think it's our most important basketball win of my lifetime.  Winning the ACC is an accomplishment.  It's an even bigger accomplishment when you have to go through Duke and North Carolina in the state of North Carolina.  It wasn't the most fun win I can think of (beating Louisville in five overtimes and beating Syracuse when they were number 1 come to mind), but it was important.  I can't think of any NCAA Tournament wins that were more important (we've only made the Sweet 16 twice in my life and never the Elite 8).  And yet, it means that we're six wins away from a National Championship.  If we had lost our first ACC Tournament game against Miami, it would have meant that we were six wins away from a National Championship.  So winning the ACC was an accomplishment, but I'd like to see us accomplish greater things.

I'll have more on the tournament later, but let me just complain about our 3 seed.  Gonzaga is seeded ahead of us only because they have three fewer losses than us.  They were 1-1 against RPI top 35 teams.  We were 6-3 against RPI top 25 teams.  Kansas is ahead of us because they played a much harder schedule.  They have three more losses than we do.  There's no logic in that.  One of those two teams can be ahead of us, but how can both be ahead of us?  I think Kansas should be ahead of us, but not Gonzaga.  If we played Kansas's schedule, we'd probably have at least eight losses too.  If Gonzaga played our schedule, they'd probably have more than five losses.

And Wisconsin is a 1 seed.  Their record against the RPI top 20 this season:  1-2 (the beat number 19 Oklahoma).  Let them play five games against Duke and North Carolina and let's see what happens.  Whatever, Jake Taylor knows what we need to do.  Go Irish!

God, Country, Notre Dame: Father Hesburgh, Rest in Peace

Today was a rough day.  I found out from Louis Nix's Instagram account that Father Hesburgh died last night.  For chaperoning the 8th grade dance at my school last night, I was allowed to dress down.  I wasn't planning on wearing Notre Dame stuff today (insert joke here about how I don't have any other clothes), but I had to after learning that news.  Father Hesburgh was a great man.  He was Notre Dame's president for 35 years, he worked for nine presidents and four popes, he worked with Mother Teresa, and he marched with Martin Luther King, Jr.

At 97 years old, this wasn't a shock, but I was really sad about it.  I had work to get done today and I didn't do any of it.  I'm okay with that.  I got to school and started reading stories and watching videos about him.  I showed all of my classes two videos that totaled about 10 minutes about him (he's one of the most historically significant priests in American history and I teach social studies at a Catholic school, it's relevant).

I also thought about my memories of him.  I saw him speak at least twice.  I remember once hearing him speak in a big auditorium and once I got to see him in a smaller group (I think it was for one of my classes).  I probably shook his hand and said hello, but I never had a long conversation with him or anything.  Dennis thinks we took a picture with him at some point.  I don't remember that, but it would have been nine or ten years ago, so it's possible.  I wish I had that picture if it happened.  I can't say that I remember a lot of what I heard Father Hesburgh say, but there is one thing that I do remember.  Somebody asked him what his favorite prayer was.  He said it was just "Come Holy Spirit."  I also think I once got a haircut right after him.  I think it was the end of the spring semester which is close to his birthday (May 25) and he was saying something to the barber about how your 89th birthday means that you're starting the 90th year of your life.  He wasn't in good condition physically (he had lost most of his sight and he couldn't move around too well), but he remained mentally sharp.

The man is a legend at Notre Dame.  It felt like if he lived this long, he wasn't going anywhere.  And now he's gone.  He's without a doubt one of the greatest men that I've ever met.  As I thought about it more during the day today, I became sadder.  I'll admit it, I shed some tears.  But really, it shouldn't be a sad day.  He was called home after living a great life.  We should celebrate all that he accomplished in life.

Just now I had the thought that I feel kind of like how I felt ten years ago when St. John Paul the Great died.  John Paul II was the pope for the first 21 years of my life.  Everything I knew about Catholicism, I learned during his papacy.  I was really sad when he died, but it was his time.  Father Hesburgh made Notre Dame into the university that it is today.  He was advised by other academics to allow women in and get rid of the football team.  He made the right decision in both cases.  I guess what saddens me is that future students won't have the opportunity that I had to hear him tell all his stories in person.

I always have a quote of the week in my classroom.  I use my favorite one from Father Hesburgh the week of his birthday, but now I've moved it up to next week:  "My basic principle is that you don't make decisions because they are easy; you don't make them because they are cheap; you don't make them because they're popular; you make them because they're right."  Here's another good one:  "Notre Dame has football.  Texas has oil.  Neither should apologize."

Thank you Father Hesburgh for making Notre Dame, the country, and the world a better place.  Rest in peace.  Come Holy Spirit.

Good Bye Nassau Coliseum

I've been meaning to go to an Islander game ever since it was announced that they were moving to Brooklyn.  This year was my last chance.  So last Tuesday, I finally got back to Nassau Coliseum, the worst arena/stadium in major North American professional sports.

It got me thinking about how many times I've been in attendance for each of the four big sports.  I know I've been to exactly one NFL game in my entire life.  I remembered the Jets beating the Panthers and Keyshawn Johnson running for a touchdown.  There's a lot that I didn't remember though.  The Jets scored 48 points.  Curtis Martin ran for a 60 yard touchdown.  The Panthers started a Notre Dame quarterback (of course, I had no connection to Notre Dame at the time).  There was a failed two-point conversion attempt.  There was a safety.  And the Jets had a fullback who had 10 carries.  Although I've only been to one NFL game, I've been to 39 Notre Dame games in the last ten seasons (they're 28-11).

I don't really know how many NBA games I've been to.  I know I've been to one in Boston (the Celtics lost to a terrible Nets team and I thought they were going nowhere, but they ended up getting to Game 7 of the NBA Finals), two in Brooklyn, and several at Madison Square Garden.  I think I went to one Celtics-Knicks games every year from 2008 to either 2011 or 2012.  And I remember at least three other games at Madison Square Garden.  So that's at least 10 NBA regular season games.  I have no idea how many college games I've been to.  I didn't go to a ton of games when I was in college, but I've gone to a lot since then.  Most of the games I've gone to since college have been double headers.  Last year I was there for seven of the nine Big East Tournament games.  I've been to four NCAA Tournament games.  My guess is I've been to at least 50 college basketball games in my life.

Of course, I've been to a ton of baseball games.  Over the last ten seasons, I've been to at least 60 games.  My guess is I've been to at least 100 Major League Baseball games.

As for hockey, only been to two Ranger games (a tie and a win).  I'm not really sure how my Islander games I've been to.  I remember my dad getting tickets through work and taking my brothers and me when I was like six (nobody else remembers this, but I'm pretty sure it happened).  I remember going around the time I was a senior in high school with my brothers and their friend Alex.  Tom's recollection is that the Islanders lost and Alex blamed us for being Ranger fans.  I went to a game with my friend Andy back in 2009.  I had no idea who the Islanders played or what the result was, but I was able to look it up.  Unfortunately, I remembered that I went to that game after watching Notre Dame lose to Navy in 2009.  So it was a 6-3 win for the Islanders against a team that became the Winnipeg Jets.  There's a chance I went to another Islander game or two that I don't remember, but that might be it.

I do have other Nassau Coliseum experience.  Tom remembered going to a Knicks preseason game there when he was in ninth grade (which would put me in third grade).  I think there might have been more than one Knicks preseason game.  I also remember going to the NBA Summer League with my dad in 1996.  I remember being excited about Nate Driggers because he lit it up for the Celtics in a summer league game (he scored 36 points in his 15-game NBA career).  The crowds for those games were really small.  There were coaches and other NBA people there and kids would go up to them and get autographs.  I remember getting Jeff Van Gundy's autograph.  My dad remembers me getting M.L. Carr's autograph.  I didn't remember that, probably because I've tried to erase any memory of M.L. Carr being the Celtics' coach (he was replaced by that scumbag Rick Pitino, so things didn't get much better).

So I went to the Oilers-Islanders game last Tuesday.  It's crazy to me that these were the two best franchises of the 1980s.  Andy picked me up from school because I was coaching a basketball game.  We got there a little late, but it was still scoreless when we arrived.  Ryan Hamilton scored first for the Oilers about halfway through the first period.  The Islanders tied it when I was getting a beer (I had a Labatt Blue, I felt like should have a Canadian beer at a hockey game).  The Islanders were outplaying the Oilers for most of the first 35 minutes or so and they took a 2-1 lead (with Notre Dame alum Anders Lee assisting on the second goal), but the Oilers tied it late in the second period.  The Oilers outplayed the Islanders for most of the third period, but Casey Cizikas scored the game-winning goal for the Islanders with less than five minutes to play.

The start of the second period

A panoramic shot

I have a couple of final thoughts.  Hockey is so much better in person than on TV.  The movement of the players and the puck looks so much more graceful in person.  It's also a great sounding game.  You really hear the skates, the puck, and the sticks when you're there in person.  Nassau Coliseum is very unusual in that there's only one concourse.  Even if you're sitting up high, you enter the seating area from ground level.  The only problem with that is that the concourse is not very wide.  At the end of the game, we walked around the concourse to the other side of the arena because it was really cold outside and we wanted to stay inside for as long as possible.  But it was so crowded that movement was pretty difficult.  And the scoreboard was so outdated.  When I watched replays on it, it was like watching a hockey game from the 1990s.  So yeah, I won't miss Nassau Coliseum, but I'm glad I got to one last game there.  If ticket prices aren't ridiculous, I'll try to get to a game at Barclays Center next year to compare.

This picture doesn't even do justice to how crappy that scoreboard is.

Happy Washington's Birthday!

Nightmare Super Bowl

Where are Eli Manning and Justin Tuck when I need them?

A year and a half ago, I wrote my Sports Hate Power Rankings.  As I noted in a comment, the Seahawks were a glaring omission.  I said they should be inserted at number 7.  Well, the Heat were at number 6 and that was mostly because of LeBron James.  So I'd move them way down the list now, which puts the Seahawks at number 6 and the Patriots at number 5.  These are my two least favorite NFL teams and now they're playing each other in the Super Bowl.

If there was ever going to be a Super Bowl that I wouldn't watch, this would be it.  I just like football too much, though.  So I will watch, but I won't be happy about either result.  I compared this possibility to a Knicks-Lakers NBA Finals.  But even though they are my two least favorite teams in the NBA, it's not a good comparison.  I would root for the Knicks without a second thought.  I hate the Seahawks and the Patriots almost equally.  The only good thing is that one of these teams is going to lose the Super Bowl.

So why do I hate these teams so much?  Let's start with the Seahawks.  Pete Carroll, Pete Carroll, Pete Carroll, Richard Sherman, and Pete Carroll.  If I did a Sports Hate Power Rankings for people, Pete Carroll wouldn't be number 1 (Barry Bonds), but he'd probably be number 1 out of football people.  Pete Carroll coached the Jets to a 6-10 record (last place) in 1994.  He was fired after one year and replaced by Rich Kotite (that worked out well).  After a couple other NFL stops (including stop as head coach of the Patriots), he went to USC.  He built his team on cheating.  The 2005 Notre Dame-USC game was the most exciting sporting event I've ever attended in person.  Notre Dame lost that game because of USC using a professional athlete.  Reggie Bush was by far the best player on the field, but he was not eligible to play in that game.  Then Pete Carroll went to the Seahawks (because he wanted to escape USC before the punishment came down) and built a team on performance enhancing drugs.  So he's been had four different college/NFL head coaching jobs.  He got fired at his first two jobs, and then he discovered cheating.

For the Patriots, it's Bill Belichick and Tom Brady.  By all accounts, Tom Brady is a good guy.  However, he went to Michigan.  If he had only won one Super Bowl to this point, I'd probably root for the Patriots.  But I really don't want Tom Brady to tie Joe Montana with four Super Bowl wins.  I'll always appreciate what Eli Manning and Justin Tuck did in Super Bowls XLII and XLVI.  Now Tom Brady has another chance to win his fourth Super Bowl and a cheating scumbag is my only hope for preventing it.  Speaking of cheating scumbags, Bill Belichick hasn't won a Super Bowl since Eric Mangini exposed his cheating in 2007.  I'd like to keep it that way.  Belichick was also named head coach by the Jets and never coached a game for them.  And the Jets were the team that unleashed Tom Brady on the NFL.  Brady was going to be good no matter what, but his career would have been much different if Mo Lewis didn't knock out Drew Bledsoe in 2001 (Brady wouldn't have won Super Bowl XXXVI that season, no way to know what happens after that).

The other thing that makes this miserable is that both of these teams should have lost already.  How did the Packers lose yesterday?  If Notre Dame ever made it to the semifinals and lost like that, I don't think I'd be able to leave my house for a month.  I was on the phone with my brother Sean early in the game and I said I hated kicking the field goals (especially the first one when they were inside the one, they were a little farther out the second time).  Maybe they wouldn't have scored a touchdown, but you have to try to get a foot and a half for four extra points.  Even if you don't get it, the Seahawks would have been pinned inside their own one.  And the Ravens should have beaten the Patriots last week.  The Patriots did a great job to come back, but the Ravens have to put them game away when you're up by 14 two different times.

So we have two teams that I have reason to hate both as a Notre Dame alum and as a Jet fan.  The Seahawks have no Notre Dame players (at least they had Golden Tate last year) and the Patriots have two (Darius Fleming and Jonas Gray).  If the guys on the Patriots were major contributors, then that might be a reason to root for them.  But I'm rooting for the Seahawks (really just rooting against the Patriots more than against the Seahawks) for a couple of reasons.  First, the Patriots have a coach and a quarterback I despise and the Seahawks only have a coach that I despise.  I have no issue with Russell Wilson.  And second, go back to the Sports Hate Power Rankings.  Michigan was number 1.  I can't root for a Michigan guy to tie Joe Montana with four Super Bowl wins.

So Pete Carroll is a cheating scumbag, but I have to root for him against another cheating scumbag.  I guess the best possible outcome would be that a huge scandal surfaces that forces Carroll to resign before the game and then the Seahawks win without him.  That would be something I could enjoy.

The misery of winter that usually kicks in after the Super Bowl has started two weeks early for me.  I just can't wait for the Big East Tournament.