DePaul and Notre Dame Renew Historic 105-Year Rivalry
12/8/2016 12:00:00 AM | WOMEN'S BASKETBALL
CHICAGO – When No. 16/15 DePaul confronts No. 2/1 Notre Dame on Saturday night at McGrath-Phillips Arena, it will be much more than a clash of two of the nation’s finest.
Coach Doug Bruno’s team and the Fighting Irish of coach Muffet McGraw will be renewing a tradition-steeped rivalry that dates back to the 1911-12 season when the men’s basketball teams first met up.
Since that humble beginning, the DePaul men’s team has gone 44-60 against their rivals from South Bend, Ind. and the Blue Demon women are 19-23. When the two teams tip off at 7 p.m., it will be the 147th showdown between these two distinguished Catholic universities.
Bruno relishes going over the rich history of this 105-year-old rivalry, of which he left his mark as a player and now as a coach.
Former DePaul athletic director Gene Sullivan was an assistant coach at Notre Dame and a member of its football team. Legendary Blue Demon coach Ray Meyer was a co-captain of the Irish basketball team his junior and senior years and spent a season as an assistant coach.
And, this connection also entwines one of the greatest players in DePaul and NBA history.
“Coach Ray was an assistant coach when George Mikan tried out for the team,” Bruno said. “It’s ironic after Notre Dame rejected Mikan that coach Ray took over the Blue Demons and brought Mikan here. Both Mikan and Ray Meyer attended Quigley North High School in their fifth years, so they already had a connection right there.”
Meyer played for Notre Dame on its last undisputed national championship team in the 1935-36 season. That team defeated eight reigning conference champions and was awarded the national title by the Helms Foundation.
Meyer took over the Blue Demon program in April of 1942 and 42 years later, he culminated a Hall of Fame career with 724 wins and two appearances in the NCAA Final Four. In his last four seasons, Meyer’s teams went a combined 68-3 at the Rosemont Horizon.
“Before there were basketball conferences, DePaul, Notre Dame, Marquette and Dayton would play a home-and-home series every year,” said Bruno, who played for Meyer from 1969-73. “It was like a mini-conference.
“Then, you progress to the TV era with the Mark Aguirre teams when Irish coach Digger Phelps had a bunch of NBA guys on his teams. This was during what I call coach Ray’s renaissance years in the twilight of his iconic career. His record the final seven years (180-30) was just off the charts. It was the Dave Corzine, Joe Ponsetto team in 1977-78 that began the renaissance.
“There was the big win on the road against Notre Dame when they were ranked No. 4. Gary Garland hit a buzzer-beater in overtime for a one-point win. Since we were also ranked (No. 11), the game was on regional TV. When it went into overtime, the game went national. The next day in the Chicago Tribune, the headline read: ‘A Nation Discovers DePaul.’”
Another memorable game in the rivalry came in Aguirre’s freshman year in front of a wildly partisan, overflow Alumni Hall crowd. Curtis Watkins scored 21 points and led the Blue Demons to a 76-72 upset of the No. 2 Fighting Irish.
“That Corzine and Ponsetto team led us to the Elite Eight, but Notre Dame beat us to get to the Final Four,” Bruno said. “I played against the Notre Dame teams coached by Digger Phelps with Austin Carr, Collis Jones and Sid Catlett. Gene Sullivan was an assistant coach who later became our athletic director and is the namesake for the Sullivan Athletic Center. So, during Ray’s renaissance years, we had two Notre Dame guys running DePaul.”
The last entry in the men’s basketball rivalry came in 2013, the final season of the BIG EAST Conference before realignment. The Irish came away with an 82-78 victory in overtime.
The most recent women’s game was Dec. 9, 2015 in South Bend when the home team built a 26-point lead in the first half only to see the Blue Demons come storming back in the second half before coming up short 95-90. DePaul hit nine of 13 three-pointers in the second half.
“We regularly played against Notre Dame when both of us were in the North Star Conference in the 1980s,” Bruno said as DePaul had a 9-6 record against the Irish back then. “We got to the NCAA tournament before they did.
“Muffet McGraw has done an absolutely magnificent job building that program and is in the women’s basketball Hall of Fame. She unequivocally belongs in the Naismith Hall of Fame. There are so many men’s basketball coaches enshrined there that don’t even come close to producing what she has.
“Muffet has built the Irish program from the bottom, and Notre Dame’s move to the BIG EAST and now the ACC has elevated it to national and Final Four prominence. Moving into that elite class, Muffet has responded by going out and getting the best student-athletes while doing a great job of coaching them. And just like Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma, she is an excellent strategist on both sides of the ball.
“When DePaul and Notre Dame were both in the BIG EAST, our rivalry became a regular thing again. We’re both two of the most prominent Catholic universities in the country.”
And before he renews acquaintances with McGraw once again on Saturday, Bruno could not resist adding one more wrinkle to this amazing rivalry.
“Here’s another DePaul-Notre Dame connection,” he said. “Our rivalry extended into the Women’s Professional Basketball League (WBL) when I coached the Chicago Hustle and she played for the California Dreams.
"You could say I’ve been coaching against her for quite some time.”