Delco Madness: Hall of Fame coach Muffet McGraw OK with ’79 Carroll being an ‘underdog’
She has coached two NCAA championship basketball teams. She was inducted into the basketball Hall of Fame. She has won five ACC championships, reached nine Final Fours and four times was named the national Coach of the Year.
University of Notre Dame women’s basketball coach Muffet McGraw has enjoyed every possible coaching thrill.
She is ready for at least one more.
It was McGraw who coached Archbishop Carroll High to national acclaim in 1979, winning the Catholic League championship en route to a 28-0 record, including success in a postseason tournament for Catholic school girls basketball powers in Washington, D.C. For that, bracketologists are nearly unanimous in forecasting a high seed for McGraw’s Patriots in the Delco Madness tournament about to be revealed in the pages of the Daily Times.
Two “Sweet 16” brackets, one each for the most successful Delaware County boys and girls high school teams of all time, will be presented, with the game “results” being reported as the mythical tournaments occur. After consultation with experts and consideration of suggestions sent to sports@delcotimes.com, a committee of Daily Times sports writers will choose the 16 teams.
As it happened in 1979, when the Catholic League enjoyed a legendary depth of talent, McGraw is ready for her team to catch the experts by surprise.
“We’re the underdog,” declared McGraw with a chuckle, in the spirit of the event. “And that’s the position I want to be in.”
Whatever works.
The bracket for the girls tournament will be revealed Monday, in the tradition of the NCAA “Selection Monday” for choosing its field of 64 women’s teams. With 39 Catholic League championship teams, four state champions, six state finalists and plentiful private-school outfits to consider, some great Delco teams will be left to blame the committee for not being invited.
Underdog or not, McGraw has high hopes for the 1979 Patriots.
“Annie Troyan was our point guard,” McGraw said. “She went to Penn State and had just a brilliant career. She probably still has a lot of the assist records there. She was just a phenomenal player. Claire Rose was probably our second-leading scorer. She went to Duke. She had a terrific senior year and a good career at Duke.
“Sandy Ranieri was our center. She was probably 5-10 but was a big girl inside. And we had some young players. Jessi Dunne went on to play at St. Joe’s. It was a good team.”
After defeating St. Hubert’s, 68-58, in the Catholic League final game at 54th and City Line, the Patriots were invited to a national tournament in D.C. While McGraw remembers the competition as being strong, she disputes the legend that it was for a “national championship.”
“I don’t remember that being that special,” McGraw said. “The Catholic League was the biggest thing.”
The 1979 team was McGraw’s second and last at Carroll. By the next year, she was an assistant coach at Saint Joseph’s, where she had played college basketball. By 1982, she was the head coach at Lehigh, and in 1987 moved on to Notre Dame, where she coached the Fighting Irish to NCAA championships in 2001 and 2018. In 2017, she entered the Basketball Hall of Fame, and she continues to add to her legend in South Bend.
But she realizes that without a special Delaware County team to coach in 1979, so much might have been different.
“Those were incredible times,” she said. “You’re playing at the Palestra and at St. Joe’s and all these fun places, and they are bringing all those buses in and everybody is screaming.”
For that, winning the 1979 Catholic League championship gave McGraw an adrenaline rush equal to anything she enjoyed at the college level.
“Absolutely,” she said. “Because that was my first. I was a young coach just starting out, and in my second year at Archbishop Carroll, winning the Catholic League championship was all you cared about.”
Then came Delco Madness … and at least a chance to experience it all again.
