March 19, 2017

Irish NCAA Tournament Centrals: Men’s Basketball | Women’s Basketball | Hockey

The University of Notre Dame is the only institution to earn spots in the 2017 NCAA Championship brackets for men’s basketball, women’s basketball and men’s ice hockey.

That was assured today when the Irish hockey team was one of 16 schools to appear in the NCAA Men’s Ice Hockey Championship bracket.

The Irish (21-11-5) are the number-four seed in the Northeast Regional in Manchester, New Hampshire, and will meet top seed Minnesota (23-11-3) at 3:30 p.m. EDT Saturday in a regional semifinal game.

Meanwhile, the Irish basketball teams both began NCAA play this past week–with the men winning a first-round game against Princeton in Buffalo while the women claimed a first-round triumph Friday in South Bend over Robert Morris. The Notre Dame women’s team meets Purdue tonight in a second-round contest.

Notre Dame, Minnesota and Providence are the only three programs to make both the 2017 men’s basketball and men’s ice hockey brackets. Notre Dame and Ohio State are the only schools in both the 2017 women’s basketball and the men’s ice hockey brackets.

Notre Dame was one of 25 schools in both the 2017 NCAA Championships for men’s basketball and women’s basketball–joining Baylor, Bucknell, Creighton, Dayton, Duke, Florida State, Florida Gulf Coast, Gonzaga, Iowa State, Kansas State, Kentucky, Louisville, Marquette, Maryland, Miami (Florida), Michigan State, New Mexico State, Oregon, Purdue, South Carolina, Texas Southern, Troy, UCLA and West Virginia.

This marks the sixth time that all three Irish teams–men’s basketball, women’s basketball and men’s ice hockey–have made NCAA brackets in the same year.

It also happened in 2007, 2008 (the hockey team advanced to the NCAA title game), 2011 (hockey advanced to the Frozen Four and women’s basketball played in the NCAA title game), 2013 (the women’s basketball squad played in the NCAA national semifinals) and 2016 (the men’s basketball squad advanced to an NCAA regional final).

–by John Heisler, senior associate athletics director

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