Nick Shepkowski had a brilliant idea to fill the void left by sports during the time that would have been March Madness. The 2020 Best Game Tournament was terrific, and we hope you had fun reminiscing about the best Notre Dame football games since 1986. Now, it’s time for a different kind of tournament that shifts the focus from the gridiron to the hardwood. Welcome to the Notre Dame 15 Years Tournament.
For the most part, Mike Brey has coached quality basketball teams in South Bend. As the head of the program, it’s a given he thinks far less about the past than about his next recruit. But in these times, we fans only can think about the past to get our sports fix. To that end, we’ve constructed a single-elimination bracket featuring every Irish team since the 2005-06 season and seeded them by overall winning percentage.
As you might have figured out from looking at this image, this tournament will be conducted in the same way as the ACC tournament. The lowest seeds will battle each other in the first round for the right to face the next tier of Irish teams in the second round. The top four Irish teams of this era have automatic quarterfinal berths. This is better and more exciting than just giving the 2014-15 Irish a first-round bye, and it allows for more competition.
The games will be decided using the simulation tool WhatIfSports.com, which is fantastic if you’ve ever wanted to pitch historical teams against each other. It allows users to do this for the four major North American professional sports leagues, Football Bowl Subdivision teams and Division I basketball teams. In the case of college basketball, the site allows to select games to be played on the home team’s floor at a neutral site. Even though these are all Notre Dame teams, these games will be played on neutral courts in the spirit of power conference tournaments.
Every day, one game will be simulated and recapped. Names you might have forgotten about will come back to your memory, and some of them might even become heroes in these games. And if anyone has a problem with one team defeating another team, well, blame the computer program and not us.
Let virtual April Madness begin!