Lou Carnesecca knew the phone wouldn’t be ringing that Selection Sunday, March 4, 1979. The NCAA had just expanded from 32 to 40 teams, but the Redmen were a middling 18-10. Iona had knocked them out of their final ECAC championship — they were bound for an odd confederacy called the “Big East” the next year. 

Looie was philosophical.

“We’re going to Rusk,” he told his wife, Mary, to visit an ailing nephew.

“What about when the NCAA calls?” Mary asked.