Irish have special place in hearts of Notre Dame fans
Kathleen O'Brien
Associate Sports Editor
NEW YORK
Throughout the 1990s, excitement for Notre Dame basketball lay dormant, the frantic crowds and 20+ win seasons of yesteryear a long-gone memory.
This year's Irish squad revived the old thrills. They pulled in rowdy sell-out crowds at the Joyce Center. The young team battled its way to a 22-win season. It upset five ranked opponents with a confidence uncharacteristic among inexperienced players.
Most importantly, they stole the hearts of the Notre Dame community and of their first-year head coach Matt Doherty.
"I told them, I said they'll have a special place in my heart," Doherty said after Thursday's loss to Wake Forest. "You don't ever want to say one team's going to be more special than another. It's like saying one child's more special than another and that's not fair. But it's going to be tough for some team to steal my heart like this team did."
The 1999-2000 Irish basketball team captured the adoration of the community with its upstart attitude, a belief that it could beat any team in the nation on any given day. And they sometimes did, knocking off two defending Final Four teams during the first two months of their season in Ohio State and Connecticut.
Little was expected of the Irish this year, as seven of their top nine players were freshman or sophomores. That kind of note would have convinced a less-determined team or a less-confident coach to focus on improving for next season, when the players would be better schooled in the ways of college basketball.
Not this team. Not Coach Doherty.
Doherty set five goals at the season's start, goals he stuck with throughout the season. His goals were to improve every day, to win the next game, to win the Big East regular season, to win the Big East tournament and to win the national championship.
"I have expectations of winning every game and winning the national championship, and that may sound ridiculous, but those are my expectations," Doherty said. "Then you realize you're not in a perfect world. Did this team live up to my expectations? They surpassed them. They worked their tails off. They trusted me and believed in me and my staff from day one, and they responded whenever we challenged them and came up with some huge wins."
Maybe Doherty's dream of a national championship was out of reach, but the Irish twice defeated the defending national champion Huskies. Perhaps Notre Dame couldn't win a Big East championship, but it played to the buzzer against co-champions Syracuse and Miami. The Irish might not have pulled off their revised goal of bringing home an NIT banner, but they didn't throw in the towel after being down 20.
"The thing about this team is that we never quit," sophomore forward David Graves said. "We were down 16, 18 and we came back and brought it to five. A couple shots here and there it's a different ball game but, that's the way it goes. We are happy about this year."
This year's 22-15 season came on the heels of a losing record. A squad that gave away the close games with a reputation for being "soft" turned into a team that fought for every rebound, every loose ball, every basket.
"There were a lot of times last year when we really didn't play that tough and we got in close games and ended up losing," sophomore All-American Troy Murphy said. "We were soft. We didn't work hard. We dogged it. Coach Doherty really changed the way we play and that resulted in a successful year."
Much of the toughness came in at Doherty's urging. When he first came to Notre Dame a season ago, he was disappointed by the team's effort level in workouts and he told them so.
"I said, that's why you guys haven't won," Doherty said. "You're soft. I've ripped them every time I've had the opportunity to when they played soft. Now I think when you watch this team, they play pretty hard, they're pretty physical, they go after loose balls and that's exciting."
Doherty ensured that the Irish were ready to play 100 percent every time tip-off rolled around.
"I think Coach Doherty brought us a lot of energy and a lot of intensity to the program and the players," freshman guard Matt Carroll said. "He's instilled in us a lot of confidence, and I think it carries over onto the court."
Aside from Doherty's influence, the team's determination to ink a winning record permeated the atmosphere.
Senior point guard Jimmy Dillon provided perhaps the best example of that gritty tenacity. He played the entire year on bum ankles, and then contributed five assists in 31 minutes of play Thursday after spraining his ankle in the semifinals.
His fire gave the Irish a major spark, one that left Doherty near tears at the realization Dillon had played his last game.
"His toughness," Doherty said before pausing. "When I got the job I wasn't sure if he was going to be able to play. We had to really monitor him in practice because he would go and he wouldn't tell me he was hurting.
"Without Jimmy Dillon, we don't win 22 ball games. His toughness, his energy, his leadership, his daring, which at times could drive you crazy but at times it won basketball games. He harnessed that and turned out to be a pretty darn good college point guard. It's tough peeling that jersey off for the last time."
Dillon, emotional at donning a Notre Dame jersey for the last time, recognized the special quality of this team.
"I'm just proud to be around such a select group of guys," Dillon said. "Throughout the whole year, we knew we had something special. We knew we can compete with anybody."
This year's Irish wouldn't have gotten to 22 victories without the strong team chemistry they had.
"Those guys like each other," Doherty said. "They like basketball. We've had several optional shooting workouts over the last few weeks and everyone showed up."
While some college basketball teams today are better known for their off-court exploits from theft to assault to accepting money from NBA agents, Notre Dame was different.
The Irish are recognized as a friendly bunch of guys happy to sign a kid's T-shirt even after a tough loss.
Even opposing coaches noticed their character, particularly as they remained at courtside throughout Wake Forest's celebration ceremony.
"As a show of respect to our team, they watched our team get the trophies and the championships and cut the nets and all that kind of thing," Wake Forest coach Dave Odom said. "It did not go unnoticed by me, by my players and it did not go unnoticed by our university. It's what college basketball should be."
Back in October, nobody predicted the Irish as a group that would win 22 games.
"I couldn't have imagined this season in my wildest dreams," Murphy said.
It won't be so far-fetched to visualize Notre Dame as an NCAA-tournament bound team come next season. The Irish lose Dillon and reserve seniors Todd Palmer and Skylard Owens. But with Doherty and the core of the squad returning, they will hope to maintain and perhaps even improve the tenacity and strong team chemistry. If they manage to attain those goals, Matt's Outrageous Bunch will be out in force at the JACC to support the Irish on the road to the top 25 for the first time in years.
"I think we have all the talent in the world," Graves said. "I think we have all the ability in the world, and with the addition of Ryan [Humphrey], we're only going to be better."
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Sports Stories for Friday, March 31, 2000
