Friday, March 17, 2000
Irish eye NIT title as consolation prize
BY MICHAEL PERRY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
By Monday, Notre Dame coach Matt Doherty had a chance to look over the NCAA Tournament bracket. Not only wasn't his team included in the 64-team field, he wasn't wild about some that were.
“I was pretty depressed,” he said. “Monday was a tough day. I'm glad we didn't play Tuesday. With each day that passed, we felt more excited about playing.”
The Fighting Irish shook off their disappointment and got past Michigan 75-65 Wednesday, advancing to a second-round National Invitation Tournament game against Xavier.
The Musketeers (21-11) will play at 7 p.m. Monday (ESPN) at Notre Dame's Joyce Center, where they are winless in seven games.
Doherty had all the ammunition he needed to get his team motivated for the Wolverines. On Tuesday, Vanderbilt — another school that felt snubbed by the NCAA Tournament selection committee — got routed 83-68 by Wake Forest.
“That got their attention,” Doherty said of his players. “If we do feel we deserved to be in the NCAA, the way to prove we belonged is by playing well in the NIT.”
Notre Dame is 19-14 and collected five regular-season victories over top-25 teams, including then-No. 2 Connecticut and then-No. 5 Ohio State.
Also this season, the Irish won their first ever Big East Conference tournament game, tied their biggest margin of victory in a road game in a 77-54 win at Georgetown, put together a seven-game winning streak from mid-December to mid-January, and had a first-team All-American in 6-foot-10 sophomore Troy Murphy.
Their victory over Michigan was their first in the postseason in three years.
Doherty expected success in his first year as Notre Dame's coach after seven years as an assistant at Kansas.
“I guess as a coach, I need to win every game and win a national championship to be totally happy, totally content,” the former North Carolina player said. “I kind of look ahead; I don't look behind. I realize how fragile things are. I'm always worried about the next game. In a lot of ways, I'm driven by the fear of failure.”
Hired last March, Doherty wanted to bring “a vision and an energy to the program.” He wants Notre Dame to be like it was from 1970-81, when it finished in the top 10 seven times.
He thought his new team lacked toughness and competitiveness, and that feeling was only reinforced by an exhibition loss Nov. 11.
A headline in the South Bend Tribune called Notre Dame's effort “lackadaisical.” That didn't sit well with Doherty.
The next day, the team was supposed to be off. Instead, Doherty assembled his players in a gym with no basketballs and had them run for 75 minutes.
He told them: If you want to quit, go ahead and leave.
“I got on them hard,” he said. “I can deal with losing as long as you give great effort.”
Five days after that loss, Notre Dame upset Ohio State 59-57 in Columbus in the first round of the Preseason NIT.
“I think they bought in from the beginning,” Doherty said, “but it's one thing to buy in verbally and another to buy in with your body and soul.”
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