How do you know?
When one shot in one basketball game is bigger than one shot in one basketball game. When everything about a program quietly starts to change. When doors of success that were long closed would soon be blown open.
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How do you know?
Notre Dame basketball didn’t know that November night 26 years ago. The Irish were too young to realize any significance. All they wanted while awash in the magnitude of that moment was to get off the court, get back to the locker room, get on the bus and do something that nobody thought they’d ever do.
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Celebrate after what would become a turning point for the program. A new course was set that night. Everything would change.
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Those moments had been too few and so far between for a Notre Dame basketball program that spent much of the 1990s wandering college basketball’s wilderness, first as a Dinosaur independent and then in over its collective heads in the Big East. There wasn’t much to get excited about Irish basketball as the decade wound down until a sophomore wing guard from Lexington, Kentucky took a few dribbles, eyed some open space and squeezed off a buzzer-beating jumper that dropped and helped light the fuse on a memorable burn that lasted 23 seasons.
On November 16, 1999, Notre Dame found itself in Value City Arena for one reason ― to be the season-opening pushover for fourth-ranked Ohio State in the first round of the preseason National Invitational Tournament. One team ― the home team ― was expected to make it to New York City over Thanksgiving week and an NIT Final Four that included Arizona, Kentucky and Maryland. The other team ― Notre Dame ― might fight a good fight, but honestly, would be in for a long night.
Notre Dame was less than a calendar year removed from an overtime loss to a Division-II team in the Great Alaska Shootout. It was six months removed from hiring a first-time head coach (Matt Doherty). It was five days clear of losing a home exhibition by 24 points.
To say that few gave Notre Dame a chance was correct. The Irish seemed a mess. Even those in the locker room weren’t sure how it was all going to go.
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Everything changed when David Graves, working off a screen from fellow Kentucky native Harold Swanagan, connected on a mid-range jumper left of the lane as time expired to give Notre Dame a 59-57 victory and its first road win over a Big Ten team since 1977.
Wait, what just happened?
“That’s a statement, baby!” Graves exclaimed on the way to the locker room.
That it was. It provided a shot of adrenaline to a faint basketball heartbeat that had quietly faded.
“It did give us a jolt,” Graves said last week. “It was kind of our ‘hello, college basketball’ moment. Like, we were kind of back and in the discussion. It gave us validation.”
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The shot is arguably one of the most important in program history. It started a fire of success that burned for 23 seasons. Raged, even.
Every run starts with the first step. The Graves shot was the first step. Without it, who knows what Notre Dame basketball becomes?
This is what it became.
∎∎∎
Notre Dame went 22-15 in 1999-2000, its first winning season in five years. It was the first of 14 consecutive winning seasons and a run of 20 of 23. It finished .500 (8-8) in the Big East for the first time. The following year, with a new coach (Mike Brey) and an old nucleus, it won double-figure league games for the first time in program history. That was the first year with at least 10 Big East wins for nine of the next 13 seasons. Double-figure league wins in five of eight Atlantic Coast Conference seasons followed.
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A culture, an identity and a program were established in two of the nation’s premier college basketball leagues.
In 2001, after its only Big East West Division regular-season championship, it made its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 1990. It was the first of 13 NCAA Tournaments in 22 seasons. Selection Sunday mattered again in South Bend.
“We started to become a little more relevant,” Graves said. “It let us know that we could compete on a national scale. It gave us a lot of confidence.”
If Graves misses the shot or Notre Dame gets worked, maybe none of what followed follows. Instead, something about Notre Dame basketball started to slowly shift that night in Columbus.
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It was the first of five victories over ranked teams. Coupled with a win at No. 2 Connecticut in early January, Notre Dame beat two top five teams on the road in the same season for the first time in school history. Confidence was percolating.
“You started to see us turn the corner with a group of guys who had taken some punches but were developing some chemistry and camaraderie with a vision to get Notre Dame back to the NCAA Tournament,” said Delaware coach Martin Ingelsby, a junior guard on that 1999-2000 team. “It gave us the utmost confidence that we could play with some of the best teams in the country.”
Play and beat. The Irish would ride an extensive tidal wave of highs. In 2003, Notre Dame went to the Sweet 16 for the first time in 16 seasons. It went to the Sweet 16 three times in 14 seasons. In 2009, it owned the nation’s longest home win streak (45 consecutive games). In 2011, it went 27-7 overall and was ranked as high as No. 4.
In 2015, it beat Duke and North Carolina on consecutive nights to capture the ACC Tournament championship. It won at North Carolina (2015) for the first time in program history. It won at Duke (2016) for the first time in program history. It won at Kentucky (2020) for the first time in program history.
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It won a four-overtime game. It won a five-overtime game.
It went 32-6 in 2015 and came within one win of a second Final Four.
“We were the best team in college basketball,” Ingelsby said. “We were so damn close with that team.”
Where did Notre Dame play that Elite Eight game? In the same state where Graves hit the shot. Ohio. Karma.
Notre Dame was close again in 2016 when it returned to the Elite Eight. In 2022, it won a school record 15 ACC games and came within two minutes of going from the last team in the tournament to another Sweet 16.
Then it all ended.
∎∎∎
Prior to Notre Dame being sent to play at Ohio State in 1999, 26 seasons passed since the Irish and Buckeyes met in Columbus. This Sunday, 26 years to the day of the 1999 game, Notre Dame (3-0) visits Ohio State (3-0) (12:30 p.m., FS1).
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These Irish, like those Irish before them, could use a big non-conference road win to validate everything it believes it can be under third-year head coach Micah Shrewsberry. Notre Dame hasn’t had a winning season – overall or in the ACC – since 2021-22. A win Sunday could serve as an accelerant. Like Graves’ shot.
Like the Irish of then, these Irish have had many long nights. For the last three winters, success has been scarce. Losing has become an unacceptable norm. Luck of the Irish? This group could use some Sunday.
Why Notre Dame? Why not Notre Dame?
“You keep fighting through all of it, you keep grinding, keep trusting your teammates and the process and then you can have that moment,” Graves said. “When you’re down, a little dormant and people don’t take your program seriously, it’s a cool moment to have with the people you put all the work in with.”
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Maybe Sunday’s final score means nothing. Maybe, if Markus Burton or Jalen Haralson or someone no one sees coming finds the ball in their hands waiting for a screen to be set and a shot to be taken, it means more. Maybe in 26 years, we will look back on this game as the start of something. Again.
It’s time to light another Notre Dame basketball fuse just as Graves did.
“People want to go back, that moment was the start,” he said. “It probably was a good start.”
Now you know.
Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on X (formerly Twitter): @tnoieNDI. Contact Noie at tnoie@sbtinfo.com
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Looking back at Notre Dame basketball victory over Ohio State in 1999
