Shumate, who helped Irish finish UCLA streak, dies – ESPN

John Shumate, who sparked Notre Dame to the 1974 upset of UCLA that snapped the Bruins’ file 88-game profitable streak, has died. He was 72.
Notre Dame introduced that Shumate died on Monday.
Shumate performed at Notre Dame from 1971-74 and was a first-team Related Press All-America choice in 1974. The Phoenix Suns made Shumate the No. 4 general decide within the 1974 draft, and he remained within the NBA by 1981 earlier than starting a prolonged teaching profession on the school and professional ranges.
“If you pay the value and do issues the precise manner and also you handle your self — your physique, your thoughts — and keep true to your self, good issues can occur for you and to you,” Shumate mentioned when Notre Dame inducted him into its ring of honor and put his No. 34 jersey within the Purcell Pavilion rafters in 2022. “I recognize that.”
He collected 24 factors and 11 rebounds whereas dueling with Invoice Walton when Notre Dame surprised UCLA 71-70 on Jan. 19, 1974, ending the longest profitable streak in Division I males’s basketball historical past. Shumate mentioned he referred to as his father, a Pentecostal minister, at about 4 or 5 a.m. the day of that recreation to specific his issues concerning the activity he was dealing with.
“So my dad prayed for me over the cellphone,” Shumate recalled. “And what? When he was completed, I felt like I might exit and compete towards the world.”
Shumate made a game-clinching rebound within the closing seconds after which threw the ball within the air as a celebration ensued.
“I am nonetheless very happy with it, our guys and our staff, the actual fact we might exit and pull off one thing that was so very important and vital for, I feel, school basketball,” Shumate mentioned in 2022 as he mentioned that recreation. “As a result of the Bruins have been beating everyone. No person might compete with them. They have been nice. On that day, we have been the very best staff.”
Shumate averaged 22.6 factors and 11.6 rebounds whereas at Notre Dame regardless of coping with all kinds of well being points throughout his school profession. Throughout his sophomore 12 months, Shumate had a blood clot in his calf and had a virus an infection round his coronary heart that put him in intensive care and precipitated him to lose 45 kilos.
He capped his school profession by averaging 28.7 factors over three video games within the 1974 NCAA match.
As an NBA participant, Shumate averaged 12.3 factors and seven.5 rebounds whereas taking part in for the Suns, Buffalo Braves, Detroit Pistons, Houston Rockets, San Antonio Spurs and Seattle SuperSonics. He made the NBA all-rookie staff in 1975-76.
He went into teaching and posted a 78-118 file at SMU from 1988-95. SMU’s 1992-93 staff went 20-8 and reached the NCAA match.
Shumate coached the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury in 2003. He was an assistant coach at Notre Dame (1981-82 and 1986-88) and with the Suns (2009-10).

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