A little salt in the wounds...
Think Digger had the best shots with the teams immediately post-78 Final Four....
Only went to then "Great Eight" in 1979.
He had three first round draft picks in Hanzlik, Tripucka and Woolridge and a high second in Tracy Jackson. Then added Paxson who was a first round pick. Branning was a very steady college player as well. He should have taken a title by 1981 with that crew. The losses to the Ainge and Stipanovich teams in the tourney were killers. They were obviously talented players but Digger had the more complete team and underachieved with it.
Link: Gonzaga, Purdue, Notre Dame among top men's college basketball programs to never win national title
Replies to: A little salt in the wounds...
We had a shot in 1974 but Marquette played an almost perfect game to beat us. We had a shot in
1975 but blew another game and Adrian Dantley chose to leave school after that year. We had a shot one year when we were up by 10 against North Carolina one year and Toby Knight made a steal and a dunk to put us up by 12 but lost on St. Patrick's Day. We had a real shot in 1977 with a team that was 10 deep but Duck Williams missed a relatively short jump shot that would have sent the Duke game into overtime in the final four. 1979 and Danny Ainge speaks for itself, we had beaten Ralph Sampson that year or was that 1981?
In 1979 ND was a # 1 seed and lost to #2 Michigan State. In 1980 ND was a #4 seed and lost to Missou
... who was a #5 seed (Stipanovich)
1981 ND was a #2 seed and lost to #6 BYU with Ainge driving the length of the court and scoring over Woolridge to end it, both the game and the run for those Freshmen who went to the Final Four.
ND has only been as high as a #2 seed in the tourney once since those days: 2011
2015 was the year to do it
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