Walk Down Memory Lane: the 1978 Consolation Game

The clip below - footage from the last minutes of the consolation game between the Hogs and Notre Dame at the 1978 Final Four - is yet more proof that YouTube is the greatest invention in the history of mankind.

Until 1982, the losers of the national semifinals squared off before the championship game for the honor of claiming third place in the NCAA Tournament. It's hard to imagine a more pointless and anti-climatic sporting event, but we Hog fans should be glad the consolation game was around when it was, for it provided the setting of one of the most memorable moments of the Eddie Sutton era: Ron Brewer's game-winning buzzer-beater against the Fighting Irish.

And for a program that, until four years earlier, had long been something of an embarrassment, the chance to beat a national power and proclaim, "We're No. 3!" was not the most insignificant thing in the world.

The audio in the clip below is fairly patchy, but it's a true treat to see footage of The Triplets in action. Bonus treat: footage of Notre Dame's Kelly Tripucka before he developed the greatest 'stache-perm combo the world has ever known.

(clip courtesy of acnhs09.)

(And to read our three-part, Ken Burns-like review of that magical 1978 season, penned by staffer Whit E. Knight, click here, here and here.)