Notre Dame Fighting Irish Slappy Awards: Best Team Performance
By Ben Belden
From Notre Dame football, to basketball, to hockey, Notre Dame Fighting Irish fans saw great team efforts this year. But which one takes the cake?
Notre Dame Fighting Irish fans were spoiled with great team performances this year. With the success of the football team, coupled with a deep tournament run for Muffet McGraw’s women’s basketball team, there was plenty of success to go around on Notre Dame’s campus.
That success doesn’t come without great team performances, and that is what today’s Slappy aims to highlight. Which games come to mind when thinking of best team performances? What games needed a total team effort?
For this category, I took those questions into account.
There are a couple ways to look at what makes a “team performance.” On one hand, there are games that require everything every player has to offer in order to merely get a win. On the other, there are games where everything just clicks and domination is achieved. In short, “Best Team Performance” could be a category that features blowouts, nail-biters, and everything in-between.
Even though many could argue that Notre Dame football’s 56-27 win over Wake Forest in Ian Book’s first game constituted a great team win because Book and company racked up great stats, for the sake of this exercise, I will be choosing to focus on games that presented the biggest challenges for Notre Dame teams.
If you will, go with me on a trip down memory lane, as I attempt to highlight some of the best team performances Notre Dame teams put together this past academic year. Here are the nominations: