As much as I ALWAYS have been a coach supporter and non-critic as long as possible into the coach's tenure, especially with a first class guy like Brey, I understand the fans' concern. I knew the game was on TV yesterday, but I didn't bother watching it. Sadly, that's where ND BB is for me.
In quite a shocking development, it's being reported that the Cleveland Cavaliers and coach John Beilein are discussing him stepping down as the coach before the start of the 2nd half of the season. When he left Michigan for the Cavs I don't think anybody would have predicted this outcome, sure any coach can fail in his next job no matter how successful he was at the old job. But this is shockingly fast. I wonder if he'll just retire or be open to returning to college basketball? He was certainly a very successful college coach at multiple places so even though he's no spring chicken he'd likely have a number of good job options should he chose to return. I can think of a school in Austin that might be in the market for a new coach!
Coach Brey has to do a lot of self evaluation on whether or not he has the fire to continue, also he has do an honest evaluation of his staff and their recruiting ability and his own recruiting effort. He's been very good for ND basketball, while we haven't reached the upper level where Duke and UNC are almost every year..we have been a solid program and Coach has been a good representative of the University. I hope we don't end up with another situation like we did with Digger where the end wasn't pretty.
After my comments above about the ND program, they pull off a huge comeback to beat N. Carolina 77-76. They were down 15 in the 2nd half. They ratcheted up the defensive intensity and rained 3s toward the end to get the impressive comeback win. This is an unusually bad UNC team, but we'll take the W.
Beilein signed a 4 year contract with the Cavs so he still might have an interest in coaching college ball for a few years if he leaves the Cavs. I thought he did a great job at M developing players and was mystified that he took the Cleveland job given their awful roster and Gilbert’s Steinbrenner like history of churning through coaches and staff. Texas would be a nice fit as they seem to have player talent but a sub par coach. I think Kansas is going to get hit with sanctions so the Big 12 will be wide open in terms of competitive balance.
Neat Tweet by Muffet McGraw, the ND womens coach. If you don't follow womens basketball Muffets Irish are having a terrible season, equally as bad as Roy Williams Tar Heels. So they got a photo together before the game....Steve Kerr's response was pretty cool as well, GS Warriors are also having a terrible season.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I’m fine Muffet. What are you talking about? <a href="Steve Kerr on Twitter">pic.twitter.com/H1CNVgPBYg</a></p>— Steve Kerr (@SteveKerr) <a href="">February 18, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The Aggies notched another road win (who would have thought we'd have ANY?) with a win over the Tide tonight. The color man had this to say about the Aggies: "They can't shoot, they don't rebound all that well, but man do they play HARD!". It's hard not to like that. Can't wait till Buzz gets some PLAYA's on the court!
Like every year, Alabama looks like gold against some of the best teams and looks like lead against some of the unranked teams. If this was football we would be Ole Miss.
Longhorns got a much needed win last night vs TCU. Freshman center Will Baker went off for 20 points off the bench, he was 1-25 from 3pt range before last night when he hit 4-6. Don't think though it changes the trajectory of the program.
Terry, Ohio State is in a similar situation when we play Iowa this evening. We have experienced so many up and down periods that I have no idea what to expect. The BIG TEN is very well matched this season and 4 losses might capture the title this season.
Some major upsets over the weekend. Kansas beats Baylor, Gonzaga to BYU, San Diego State loses for first time and two major upsets in the BIG TEN. The Hoosiers taking down Penn State yesterday and the Buckeyes beat Maryland a few minutes ago. The Big Dance should be fun to watch in a few weeks.
Don there just isn't a dominant group of teams at the top, like there is in football. Should be a very interesting NCAA tournament
Last year's Final Four had one #1 seed, one #2 seed, one #3 and one #5 seed. Close to chalk and normally always the case that the highest seeds wind up there at the end. You can pick upset teams in your bracket but be careful taking them out too deep into the tournament.
Don I couldn't help but notice that Ohio State is back in the top 25, so I guess the season has turned around for you guys.