Tag: South Bend

FIW Exclusive: Interview with parents of San Antonio Spurs’ Blake Wesley

Hear some great insights from the parents of Notre Dame-turned-NBA player.

[autotag]Blake Wesley[/autotag] played with Notre Dame for only one season, but he did enough to leave a lasting impact. He led the Irish with 14.4 points and 1.3 steals a game and was second in assists with 2.4 a game. He was a major reason for the Irish’s most recent trip to the NCAA Tournament in 2022, their first in five years.

Wesley now is in the middle of his third season with the San Antonio Spurs, averaging 3.4 points and 1.9 assists over 27 games off the bench. He will turn 22 later this season, so he has a lot of room to grow still.

Perhaps nobody is prouder of Wesley than his parents Derrick and Leslie, who have lived in South Bend almost their entire lives. They were kind enough to take time to speak with us about their son. We touched on his past, present and future as a basketball player.

Here now is the full interview with the parents of one of only two active NBA players who came from the Irish:

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For Wesley in action, here are some highlights from earlier this season:

Hope you enjoy all of this, and our thanks again to Derrick and Leslie for their time.

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Select AMC Theatres sites to air College Football Playoff title game

Watch the Irish play for the title on the big screen.

If you want to go big while watching Notre Dame play Ohio State in the College Football Playoff title game, there’s one way you can. In November, ESPN and TNT announced a theatrical distribution agreement with Theater Sports Network. This would allow all playoff games to be theatrically shown.

As part of the agreement, AMC Theatres has announced that the title game will be shown in 11 locations, all of them throughout the Midwest. Given the locations of the game’s participants, it’s not surprising to see the games being shown where they are.

In South Bend, the game is being shown at the location on West Chippewa Avenue off South Michigan Street. Elsewhere, it will be shown at two locations in Indianapolis, one in Fort Wayne and four in the Chicago area. If you happen to be in Buckeyes territory, one location in Columbus is showing the game as well as two in the Cincinnati area.

You probably never expected to have this particular opportunity, but it’s there if you want it and live in one of the aforementioned areas.

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Notre Dame loses to North Carolina on four-point play in final seconds

Terrible way to lose.

With [autotag]Markus Burton[/autotag] back in the lineup from injury, Notre Dame had enough to beat North Carolina. This was an opportunity to let a network TV audience know good things were happening in South Bend. But all of it was undone by one ill-timed foul that led to a heartbreaking 74-73 loss.

The Irish (7-7, 1-2) had trailed the Tar Heels (9-6, 2-1) by as much as 12 earlier in the game and dealt with 27 points from Ian Jackson. Yet they held a 73-70 lead with 14 seconds left.

[autotag]Matt Allocco[/autotag] found himself in the corner guarding Elliot Cadeau, who put up a 3 and was fouled by Allocco while still in the active shooting. The game-tying 3 went through, and Cadeau hit the go-ahead free throw, prompting [autotag]Micah Shrewsberry[/autotag] to call a timeout and draw a game-winning play with 4.8 seconds remaining.

Burton drove the length of the court and put up a layup with time set to expire. Contact may have been made against him, but it wasn’t called, and the layup missed the rim. Although [autotag]JR Konieczny[/autotag] successfully put back the rebound, time already had run out, and the Irish were left to wonder what could have been:

Burton scored 23 points off the bench in his return. [autotag]Tae Davis[/autotag] had 17 points, and [autotag]Braeden Shrewsberry[/autotag] added 16.

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Only team Notre Dame lost to in 2024 regular season wins bowl game

Remember the Huskies, Irish fans?

As great a 2024 season Notre Dame has had, the story never will be complete without the loss to Northern Illinois in the home opener. That meant the Irish had to win out to make the College Football Playoff. They did just that and have at least a first-round win to show for it.

The Huskies weren’t so lucky as they went .500 over the rest of the regular season, dropping them to 7-5. They settled for a berth in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl against Fresno State on Boise State’s famous blue turf.

It turned into the most thrilling bowl game so far this year. Neither team’s kicker could make a field goal to end it in regulation, and two overtimes were needed to determine a winner. Fortunately for the Huskies, they scored in that second overtime, and the Bulldogs didn’t, resulting in a 28-20 victory.

As the game ended and the celebration began, ESPN play-by-play announcer Lowell Galindo noted the Huskies were “celebrating like it’s South Bend”. You can see for yourself here:

Congratulations to the 2024 Huskies. While Irish fans won’t remember them fondly, they also should be grateful for them because without that loss, the Irish might not have dug as deep as they did and looked as dominant as they have since then.

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‘College GameDay’ coming to Notre Dame for College Football Playoff

Get ready to reserve your place in the crowd.

ESPN and ABC will broadcast the first-round College Football Playoff game between Notre Dame and Indiana. And “College GameDay” wants to be in South Bend before it kicks off.

The popular college football program has announced that Notre Dame will be one of two stops it will make during that weekend. It also will be at Ohio State before it plays Tennessee the following day.

This will be the 37th time the Irish have been featured on “College GameDay” and the second time this season after they were featured ahead of their season-opening victory over Texas A&M. They currently have an unfortunate 16-20 all-time record in those games so far.

“College GameDay” last came to South Bend a season ago. That was before the Irish infamously had only 10 men on the field on the play that caused them to lose in gut-wrenching fashion to Ohio State. Hopefully, the Irish fans who gather on the Library Lawn this time around will be a lot happier after this upcoming appearance.

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FIW Exclusive: Interview with 2026 Notre Dame commit Sullivan Garvin

We got the inside scoop on the Irish’s latest commit.

Notre Dame now has five commits in its 2026 recruiting class. The newest is three-star interior offensive lineman [autotag]Sullivan Garvin[/autotag] from Allegan, Michigan, which is little more than an hour and a half’s drive from South Bend. Garvin made his announcement one day after National Signing Day for the 2025 class.

Although Garvin received offers from other programs after the Irish presented him with theirs Sept. 28, there was no doubt in his mind about where he wanted to go. So [autotag]Joe Rudolph[/autotag] has his first commit in this particular recruiting class.

Being the Irish’s latest commit, Garvin made the interview rounds in the hours after announcing his decision. Fighting Irish Wire was lucky to be one of the outlets to be granted an interview with him. This was made possible after communication with Tracy Garvin, his mother who took notice of us on social media when we reported on his offer from the Irish.

Here’s what Garvin had to tell us:

Audio Player

Our thanks to the Garvins for their time and effort with this, and we hope the younger Garvin has a fruitful career with the Irish.

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Photos of Notre Dame football’s victory over USC in annual rivalry game

What image will you remember most from this game?

Notre Dame is in the College Football Playoff after closing the regular season with a 49-35 victory over USC. It’s great whenever the Irish defeat the Trojans, especially on the road, but this one carried extra meaning for the aforementioned reason. Historically, the Irish have needed this win a bunch of times to determine their postseason fate, and they answered the call again.

Now, the Irish play the waiting game as to where they’ll be playing their first playoff game and who. It’s almost if not completely certain that they’ll be opening at Notre Dame Stadium, so fans undoubtedly are making their travel plans for South Bend for that weekend if they haven’t already. Who would have thought that was possible after the loss to Northern Illinois?

While there are bigger things ahead, that doesn’t mean the Irish shouldn’t enjoy their win over the Trojans. In fact, they might want to look back at photos of the day such as the following:

Notre Dame vs. Virginia: Fourth-Quarter Analysis

This quarter was uneventful, but that’s OK with the win.

Notre Dame didn’t need to do anything fancy to close out Virginia. Never mind that it failed to score on fourth-and-goal to cap a lengthy drive that began in the third quarter. It already had done enough to secure a 35-14 victory, which featured Tony Muskett running for a garbage-time touchdown.

Even though [autotag]Zac Yoakum[/autotag] capped another long drive by missing a 36-yard field goal, hardly anybody at Notre Dame Stadium cared at that point. The Irish were going to cap their home season with another victory. At least for the moment, the loss to Northern Illinois that happened there in September felt like a distant memory.

Obviously, Irish fans aren’t going to forget about that defeat to the Huskies entirely because it still threatens to derail their team’s chances at the College Football Playoff.

The focus now was on the seniors playing perhaps their final game in South Bend. It never is easy for Irish fans to say goodbye to those players, but all good things must end. If this is it for them at home, it was a nice way to go out.

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Former Notre Dame football coach Gerry Faust dies at age 89

Rest in peace, Coach.

Sad news for longtime Notre Dame football fans broke Monday. [autotag]Gerry Faust[/autotag], who coached the Irish from 1981 to 1985, has died at age 89.

Over his five seasons in South Bend, Faust accumulated a record of 30-26-1, good for a .535 winning percentage. Under his leadership, the Irish won the 1983 Liberty Bowl over Doug Flutie and Boston College. The following year, they lost the 1984 Aloha Bowl to SMU in its last game before it was handed the death penalty a few years later.

A disappointing 1985 season in which the Irish went 5-6 prompted Faust to announce that he would resign after the final game against a Miami team coached by Jimmy Johnson. The Irish lost that game, 58-7, and the university would go on to hire [autotag]Lou Holtz[/autotag] as Faust’s successor.

After his Irish tenure ended, Faust went to coach at Akron, where he did so for nine seasons and compiling a 43-53-3 record. But he never lost his love for the Irish no matter how much time passed:

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Faust family during this difficult time.

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Notre Dame men’s basketball to wear green jerseys for four home games

Dress appropriately for these games.

A big deal always is made whenever the Notre Dame football team wears green jerseys. Typically, it’s reserved for a special occasion once a year. But the men’s basketball team has decided one game of green jerseys isn’t enough.

In a video released Monday, the Irish announced that they will wear green jerseys four times at Purcell Pavilion during the 2024-25 season. The video showcases [autotag]Micah Shrewsberry[/autotag] being asked which one of the four games his team should sport the jerseys in.

After a moment, Shrewsberry decides that Syracuse, North Carolina, Virginia Tech and Pittsburgh all need to see the jerseys when they visit South Bend.

The Irish wore green jerseys once last season, and that was a 73-61 loss to Miami. This year, they’ll stick with them of sporting them against ACC competition.

Also of note is that all of the games will be broadcast on network TV. Three of them will be on The CW, and CBS has the game against the Tar Heels. Clearly, the Irish want to look their best while playing for national audiences.

We’ll find out soon enough whether the green jerseys are lucky for the Irish.

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