Notre Dame Winter

Nice win over #11 Florida State for Brey and ND. Irish led by as much as 20 in 1st half. Withstood a hard second half charge by FSU to win 83-73. First win over a ranked team in over 3 years.

 

Irish Hockey swept Penn State to finish the season. Big 10 Tournament will be played at Notre Dame, seeding is by winning %, so Irish will be seeded 4th and face Penn State again.

Wisconsin is the #1 seed, followed by Minnesota and then Michigan.

Irish baseball won the weekend series with Clemson 2-1. Right now Link Jarrett appears to be a great hire as the baseball coach.

 

Re: Hockey. Terry, if you watch the games (I watched 2/3 of the Friday game), #25 is Solag Bakich, the son of Huntley Bakich, whom you might remember from his ND football days in the early 90s. He was a family friend during his and Brian's years at ND, and he's the one who convinced Brian to walk on. A story for another time. He never lived up to his potential at ND (Texas HS POY in 1990 season). He was most famous for Lou grabbing him by the face mask and chewing him out. He graduated with excellent grades in a challenging major (can't remember what it was) and married a fellow ND student. He lives in Dallas.

Re: Baseball. A good sign to me is that we won two close, low-scoring games Saturday and Sunday against a consistently strong ACC program. If ND's attendance restrictions permit, I hope to make the 2.5-hr trip north this spring to see a game or two.

 

I do remember Huntley Bakich and that incident Sid, I had no clue that his son was a hockey player.

 

From Seth Davis of the Athletic: If this is accurate then Mike Brey will be the coach at ND in 2021/2022.

Mike Brey, head coach, Notre Dame. Brey’s contract expires in 2025, and he has said he does not expect to be coaching in South Bend beyond that. The Irish last played in the NCAA Tournament in 2017, and with this year’s team finishing 11th in the ACC, there has been much speculation that perhaps Brey, 61, is ready to step down voluntarily. “Absolutely not. No way,” Brey told me when I asked him about that possibility. “We’ve got a great group coming back and a former co-Ivy League Player of the Year (Paul Atkinson, a 6-10 grad transfer from Yale). I feel really strongly we could get back in the hunt, and I know our guys feel that way too.” With Brey’s intentions made clear, the only question is whether Notre Dame’s athletic director Jack Swarbrick will force him out. It’s not impossible, but it would be a pretty big surprise.

 

As far as I'm concerned, I want him to leave on his own terms. I hope the team's performance over his last few seasons allows him to do that.

 

Jack Nolan's call of the last shot...Nolan is retiring.

 

In addition to the former Ivy League Player of the Year 6'10", Paul Atkinson there are a couple of South Bend High School seniors that are well thought of and will be joining the Irish next year. Not sure how big a deal getting to 700 points is but apparently it's never been done for a South Bend kid.

 

What an ideal way for Jack Nolan to end his illustrious career! His last words:
GOT IT! THE IRISH WIN! THE IRISH WIN!

 

Good thing I didn't watch last night, UNC ran over the Irish like they were the Washington Generals.

 

I think that blowout last night pretty much ended any speculation that the Irish Men might end up in the NIT, but the Irish Women who are also unlikely to get a NCAA bid I do believe could end up in the WNIT and I do think that could be a good thing for this team. The men need to hang it up and coach Brey needs to decide what he's going to do with his future, which given what he said to Seth Davis means that he will return next year. But it'd be a good thing for Brey and Swarbrick to confirm it.

 

Irish picked up a CB verbal from California, he's a 4 star top 300 player, and many think we're due to get another defensive verbal from top 150 4 star lb Joshua Burnham from Traverse City Michigan.

Hard not to notice how well new DCoord, Marcus Freeman, has been doing on the recruiting trail.

 

Irish Baseball sweeps Virginia.

 

3 straight road series to start the season and 3 series wins! More evidence that Link Jarret has been an excellent hire.

 

While it's definitely premature to start thinking about this, but if Link Jarrett is what he seems to be then other programs will be coming after him. I hope ND/Jack Swarbrick are prepared to meet the challenge of retaining a hot young baseball coach. The one thing in our favor is that his Alma Mater, FSU, just hired the son of Legendary FSU coach Mike Martin who won a lot of games and always had FSU in CWS even though he never won a CWS title. So unless the kid bombs out, there won't be a going home to Mamma situation.

 

Irish Hockey season is done, losing to the Penn State team they swept 5-2 and 7-1 just last week.

 

While, inexplicably, the Irish have made no announcement on the Spring, it is being speculated that March 24th will be the start and the Spring game April 24th.

 

It looks like Tony Dungy is being replaced on the NBC telecasts of ND football. His replacement is Drew Brees. Sorry to see Tony go, he did a nice job. Looking forward to seeing what Brees brings.

 

Apparently the Irish Women's Basketball is done for the year and won't be accepting a WNIT bid after being left out of the NCAA tourney. Just my opinion but I do think in most normal years going to the WNIT for this team would be a good thing. But I guess the school and the coach/team feel that they have had enough for now and will go back to a more normal life.