Who's talking about firing him? Not moi. He has made ND basketball relevant. People with short memories forget how pitifully irrelevant ND BB had become before Brey arrived. He has done a great job......in the regular season. The issue of tournament preparation needs to be addressed, but that alone is not even close to justification for firing him. When I read comments like above, I always recall that John Wooden was the head coach at UCLA for many more years than Brey at ND before he began his historic run. I'm not comparing Brey to Wooden. I'm just sayin'.......
Mike Bray might be another John Wooden :?: :roll: I may be wrong but the year before Bray came to ND Doherty picked up the pieces of the McLoud debacle and took the team to an NIT final. They might have been irrelevent but at least they didn't roll over in a tournament.
Gip, it's spelled Brey. I know you are negative on Brey, and I understand your frustration, so I'm not going to debate you. I would submit that Mike Doherty's one-year reign as head coach, whatever the end result, does not qualify him as a good coach. Ty Willingham and Charlie Weis each had an excellent season early in their time at ND. Where are they now? Where is Doherty now? That's a serious question. I don't know.
No doubt Doherty created some buzz around the program, but when you look at what happened after he left ND I have a feeling that he'd have burned out pretty quickly, but we'll never know. At the time Irish fans pretty much aknowledged that we were an interim stop for him that when and if UNC came calling that he would leave. Just didn't think it would be that fast. As far as Mike Brey goes, obviously another flame out was disappointing for the fans and there is a lot of speculation that he's taken the team as far as he can. There is always criticism of his "short" bench. He rarely plays more than 7 guys maybe 8. Not sure though that that is all that uncommon for college though. I said earlier he has maybe his best group of recruits coming in next year including his highest ranked recruit ever in that PG from South Bend. So he's got some rope. I guess the critical question is what is Jack Swarbrick's opinion on where the program should be? If he thinks mens basketball should be as good as the womens team then he has to start thinking about a change, not fire Brey now but start making his short list. The one thing McGraw has done for the women is that once they made their first sweet 16, they have pretty much made it every year and she's consistently had us in the top 10, she's got a NC and multiple trips to the Final Four. If that's the bar for the men, Swarbrick needs to start making his short list and keeping a close eye on the program. edit: Regarding facilities the Irish have a very poor and outdated practice facility that supposedly hurts them with recruiting. The remake of the JACC in to the Purcell Pavillion was a big help for sure, but the men esp need a new practice facility. It's on the boards and supposedly waiting for the funding level (donations) to reach some level. So hopefully Sid will free up some of his foundation money and make it happen!
Good news of course is that the Irish Hockey team are the #1 seed in their region, Miami is in our region as well so it will be tough to get to the Frozen Four but it's possible. We finished the season strong. Irish Baseball also doing well, are ranked for the first time in a long time and just swept the weekend series with Seton Hall. Moving to the ACC will really require us to invest more into the program as ACC baseball is on another level from the Big East. As a northern school in a southern league it's going to be tough to compete. One of the reasons is the scholarships, there are only 11 or something like that for baseball. The result is almost all teams roll with partial scholarships which gives a huge advantage to State schools where tuition is lower. Aoki is going to have to be a magician and find lots of diamonds in the rough and coach them up.
Our men's lacross, football, and hockey teams have all reached the championship game in the past few years. Our ladies soccer team and basketball team are also championship contenders. We've also had outstanding fencing teams. Why is it we don't expect our basketball team to be as successful as Butler or Gonzaga? Ben Howland went as far as Brey this year and he's out. They don't put up with pathetic tournament performances in Westwood. I read about lack of investment in facilities and coaches salaries. That's crap. We have to invest more than schools like Florida Gulf Coast.
I hear you but the circumstances for sports like lacrosse, hockey and women's sports in general are a long way from Men's Basketball. I would be interested to hear somebody ask Jack Swarbrick why the bar is lower for mens basketball than any other sport at ND than baseball.
http://www.latimes.com/sports/college/basketball/la-sp-0326-college-basketball-notes-20130326,0,691805.story
Gip, as I try to decipher the sublety of your comments, I get the drift that you're not happy with Brey. :lol: Seriously, I understand your position, and despite my rah-rah approach to ND sports, there are times when I'm inclined to agree. Our BB team causes my emotions to be all over the map, from elation to anger and frustration. I really like Brey. As I've stated before, he has brought the program up to a level we haven't seen since Digger. At the same time, there are times when we don't show the energy that we should expect every minute of every game. Too often those times have been at the end of our seasons in a tournament game. When all is said and done, I don't have an answer or a preference (stay or go). I mean it when I cite Wooden's career as a basis for hope that Brey will break through the tournament mindset barrier. Maybe it's a talent gap. Maybe our entry into the ACC will improve our recruiting. Maybe not. I guess we'll just have to see where the program goes in the next year or two, because I'm sure Brey will be around for at least that long.
If you've been following gip over the years you'd observe that he's never been a fan of Mike Brey. I've been up and down with regards to Brey, certainly we've had some excellent regular seasons...they year that Ben Hansborough was a Sr, he had one of those all time highlight games on his Sr. night and I thought...wow...Sweet 16 here we come. But that was the last good game the kid had he was awful from there on out. The year we played Duke for a shot at the Sweet 16 and really played them well, I thought it was just a matter of time. But years go by and it never happens. I do think that with the change to the ACC and the class he has coming in this fall and his recent contract extension indicates he's got a very long rope.
I agree with Gip in that.. if you are happy with things being where they are then Brey is your guy. If you want better, than you need to get better. However, Terry makes a great point. Brey has recruited well and the jump to the ACC will offer a new selling point to recruit. That being said, I'm still not sure it will make much of a difference. The team will have some players and create some memories but their season will be over by Easter.
Well the Irish are down 2 WR's both Devonte Neal and Justin Ferguson have announced they are transfering. Neal reportedly has a girlfriend who has his baby and he wants to be close to her and no reason is given for the transfer of Ferguson.
Hounshell gone for the year again. The RB from USC breaks something every time he puts on pads and the personnel director bolts for the NFL. All we are missing are the violinists to keep the panic at bay.