I used to joke around 2016 that Notre Dame had become a basketball school and that the mural on the side of the library should be renamed “Three-point Jesus”.
Since then Notre Dame basketball has fallen on some difficult times as they’ve won one NCAA Tournament game all while the football team has had easily it’s best run since Lou Holtz left campus.
The 2021 NBA Finals do offer a couple of Notre Dame connections however as Pat Connaughton of the Bucks is the first former Irish player to qualify for the NBA Finals since Joe Kleine of the 1998 Chicago Bulls.
On the other side it’s NBA Coach of the Year and former Notre Dame star Monty Williams, directing the Phoenix Suns.
So what happens the next couple of weeks in these NBA Finals that nobody saw coming?
Here is how the Fighting Irish Wire staff handicaps the series: