http://www.ndinsider.com/football/a-seismic-change-staff-shifts-could-lead-to-new-look/article_6714e728-d8c4-11e4-aca1-b3c9fbd3ed61.html?mode=jqm Interesting read...Mike Denbrock Interview.
Don't really know squat about Lacrosse, other that I don't care that much for Buicks...just kidding. But always glad when an ND sport does well. http://laxmagazine.com/college_men/DI/2014-15/news/032615_matt_kavanagh_is_notre_dames_king_of_clutc
I watched the entire game last Saturday on TV vs. then undefeated and #1 Syracuse. ND was up 9-3 when Syracuse made its run to go ahead 11-10 with less than a minute left. ND refused to lose and came back to tie, followed by a thrilling 2 OT sudden death win. Kavanaugh is a heck of a player. If the football team can find leaders like Kavanaugh, Connaughton, and Grant, it should be a good season in 2015.
My grandson Patrick is a Lacrosse player and had his first HS game last night. Met him and his dad at ND a few years ago to go to an NCAA playoff game at ND. I find the sport exciting to watch. Nice article on Kavanagh.
Irish get their first verbal for 2017 in Fla OL Dillian Gibbons. OL recruiting really seems to be going great, and our OL depth/talent is the best we've had in a long time.
I read an article that said his HS coach is Mike Alstott. Think he's learning toughness from his coach? Yep.
ND women slip by South Carolina tonight. They had some chances to pull away late but blew some chippies and it turned into a very tight game. 2 plays at the end, Madison Cables put back and Hanna Huffman's defense forcing a wild last shot by SC. Next up most likely UCONN, who is more dominant than Kentucky ever thought they were.
I have to say, the officiating was awful. Two players are running down the floor, their feet tangle up, one goes down, the other is called for "not falling" and fouls out of the game. Absolutely incompetent refereeing.
Gip I agree, that call on Turner was terrible..it really looked more like the So.Car. girl tripped herself to me. On that last So.Car play. I often wonder about end of game timeouts. It seems to me that more often than not the team that calls the timeout to set up their offense to take the best shot to either tie and force OT or win the game never gets off a decent shot and whatever the play was that they drew up falls apart as soon as the ball is inbounded. I think So. Carolina would have been better off just pushing the ball up court and taking it too us and not trying to set up the one girl for the big shot. They had been doing well getting it inside and getting the shot or forcing us to foul. After the timeout we had time to set our defense and we disrupted their called play.
I agree with both of you on the tripping call. Very bad call. It happens more and more in both the men's and women's games. How about in the WI-KY game, the failure to call a flagrant 1 foul on Lyles for the clearly intentional smack in the face of the WI kid. I don't know what they were thinking. Of course, karma got Lyles later with the charging call which was a key turning point in WI's favor toward the end of the game.
This is an old photo from long ago, everybody knows that Geno was once Jim Foster's assistant at St. Joe's and when he left Muffet replaced him. This is from a trip to the Jersey Shore. Note Geno's Notre Dame sweat shirt. Like so many old photo's like this at the time I'm sure nobody ever thought Geno would eventually become the greatest womens basketball coach if you consider Nat'l Titles the bench mark and Muffet his biggest thorn in his side.
Sid I definitely agree with you on that Lyles no call. Right after that the Badgers were called for a charge that I thought was a terrible call. Of course the only call mentioned after the game was the 35 sec. violation non call. Just like ND, Ky. changed their offense at crunch time. They started to try to milk the clock. As one talking head said, it made it much easier for Whisky having to play defense for 10 or 12 seconds rather than 25 or 30.
You know, Gip, when WI made that put-back after the shot clock expired, I kind of ho-hummed and said WI had that coming after the two critical calls against them, including the bad charging call you mentioned.
Irish Women lose...again...to UConn. We had our chances, but just turned the ball over way too much and then UConn got hot from 3pt land in the 2nd half. Good news is that the entire starting lineup will be back and key reserves, we'll add 3 HS AA's to that bunch. Bad news is that the rest of the top teams and UConn were also very young. So.Car loses 1 starter, UConn loses 1 starter, Baylor loses 1 starter, I don't know about Maryland. At the beginning of the year nobody thought we were going to the Champ game, hope of course to make Final Four. We were in the Top 10 to start the season but towards the bottom. Great season, key for next year is the offensive development of Freshman Brianna Turner. She was good around the basket but she needs to develop a shot from further out. They dared her to shoot from the foul line or 10-12 feet.
I've heard from Stephen Finn and he's doing well, last I time I saw him was at a dinner he hosted at his home in Columbus for the Texas/Ohio State game. He said he still gets to ND games almost every year.
Surprise of the Spring. Irish Jr. Jewel Lloyd has declared for the WNBA draft and forgoes her Sr. Year. It's very uncommon for women to do this, mainly there isn't that much money to be had playing in the WNBA. When you look at grad rates almost all womens college programs have close to 100% graduation rate. Of course there is lots of speculation surrounding it, Jewel did not have an esp good tournament by her standards. So was this weighing on her mentally, when did she tell Coach McGraw? If she had made up her mind but didn't tell her she was leaving till after the finals, that could have been something that she dreaded doing and maybe caused her to be tense or even try too hard to create the perfect finish. I don't know, but good luck to her and I'm really sorry to see her go. A Minn player is also going to the draft early, and there have been a few others but not very many have gone early. Partly because you can't go until your 22nd birthday..so while lots of kids are 22 when the graduate, and probably a lot of women are thus eligible, Skylar Diggins was 22 in 2012 and could have gone, but she played the 2012/2013 season. I hope this doesn't become a trend, one of the things I think the womens game has going for it is that the players stay and play 4 years.
ND <r>I'm a big fan of Joe Schmidt so I was really happy to see him hit the practice field again:<br/> <br/> <iframe width="560" height="315" src="<URL url="https://www.youtube.com/embed/m4v-14TeV3M">https://www.youtube.com/embed/m4v-14TeV3M</URL>" frameborder="0"></iframe><br/> <br/> This kid is something else. Real warrior. Hope he is ready to go full strength come fall.<br/> <br/> Also, I'm beginning to believe the hype on Tillery.</r>