JotCast | Notre Dame men's basketball March chat

Notre Dame men's basketball March chat

Thomas Noie

2:49

That will do it for today. My keyboard's smoking. Solid effort. Let's do it again sometime later in the month. Or next. What will the Notre Dame men's basketball program look like? Stay tuned.

2:46

Maggie: Kind of have to let this season end first, right? Same thing as who might be the next coach. Let it breathe. Everyone wants the next to happen now. Deep breaths.....

Maggie, Merrillville

2:45

Are there any rumblings on who might replace Jack Nolan? Will he be honored in any way on Saturday? I mean it's his senior day in a way also.

Thomas Noie

2:45

After covering two coaches and two coaching searches in my first two years, Mike Brey promised he'd give it at least five years before I had to do one of those again. It's not been the smoothest of rides for the fans, but these last 21 years have been really good from a media coverage standpoint. Mike Brey never got to a Final Four, but when it comes to media access, he was a No. 1 seed every single year. That's all a beat writer/turned columnist could ask for. It's been a great ride.

2:42

Morgan: Might be the last question to end the day on, so it's gotta be good one. And this one is. All-time starting five to interview, for myriad reasons - Pat Connaughton, Bonzie Colson, Troy Murphy, Ben Hansbrough and Tory Jackson off the top of my head. Ask me tomorrow and I might give you a different five. There have been so many good ones through the years, which is what has made covering this team such a great ride. Good dudes who knew the drill. They didn't pout when i might've written something they didn't like (even B-Hans). Always learned something new about the game talking with Rod Balanis. The guy's wealth of knowledge is staggering. I thought I had a pretty good memory. Rod's is ridiculous. Again, all good guys. It really starts at the top. If this is it for Mike Brey, he'll be unbelievably missed from a media standpoint. He just got it. Can't remember the number of times a beat writer in the Big East would say, I'll trade you my head coach for your head coach. Nope. Not ever trading.

Morgan Mac - DC

2:38

Need more questions? Ok. Who is your all time starting five guys to interview plus an assistant coach? Most interesting and open and personable?

Thomas Noie

2:38

JT: He couldn't be tough on them because he needed them to produce. Worry about the tough love later. There was no time for any of that that year. It was more survival mode. Like I want to teach you guys and get you to understand how this all works, but I need you for heavy minutes against Duke. No-win situation.

2:37

Tom, maybe you just said it all, "I don't know if you can be the hard-nosed coach with this group when they were freshmen." Goes back to recruiting? Top 15 class on paper, but toughness, heart? Need athletic, tough, basketball players with a sprinkle of Brey types players?

Thomas Noie

2:36

Clint: You DO have a question. Nothing on Carmody, because his rehab was technically over in January. Brey chose not to play him the rest of the year, just get him back to practice at a slow pace and rebuild his confidence to where he can cut it all loose in the fall. Just the fact that he's still healthy is a plus. Small steps for him.

Clint from Winnipeg

2:35

Okay, here's one thing I'm interested in. I know he's not going to play in a game this season, but have you heard anything positive about Carmody's rehab?

Thomas Noie

2:35

Clint: Want to answer some of mine? LOL

Clint from Winnipeg

2:35

I don't have a question today. At this point it feels like there's nothing left to say. It's sad, really.

Thomas Noie

2:27

JT: Not entirely true. Early in his career, Dane Goodwin felt he needed to be coached harder, said it made him a better player. Brey coached him harder from then on. Hasn't really worked. I don't know if you can be the hard-nosed coach with this group when they were freshmen. They were just trying to survive after losing Rex Pflueger. Now they've got Coach up their butts about boxing out??? This core won 10 league games last year - not all of it was because of Gibbs and Mooney and Pflueger.

2:25

That is why he might be gone. He has failed to adjust with the kids he recruited. He needed to be their coach and a hard nosed coach with this JR class from day one. Now it is too late. As a teacher cannot be touch after Christmas, you have lost the class.

Thomas Noie

2:25

JT: They ALL should know. Exactly.

2:24

Not a Brey defender at all. However, ND lever players should know by now not to go to the corners and basic ways to break certain presses. My lord the coaches should know.

Thomas Noie

2:24

Bill: I have a weird relationship with the student body. Important for the program, but never got the sense the majority of them were in it for the long haul. Big games? Yeah, let's go Irish! Not a big game, meh, might hit the library and knock out a few chapters instead. If they feel that strongly about what they've been denied in basketball success, write a letter to the editor in The Observer.

Bill

2:22

I am torn because when I was student, the basketball team gave us way more memories than the football team and so when those students call for Brey's firing, my initial instinct is to tell them to shut up and Brey has been winning at ND since before they were born. On the other hand, there is not a student on campus that has a one positive memory of the basketball team. Even if ND hires the "right" guy as a replacement and he wins, it still won't be Brey because he won with such a loose style that was such a delightful juxtaposition to the curmudgeons he went against (Calhoun, Boeheim, Coack K, etc.)

Thomas Noie

2:21

Wade: You're overlooking one little point about everything. It won Maui. It was ranked No. 5 in the country. EVERYTHING changed about the direction of the season that early December night in Breslin Center when Bonzie Colson felt a lingering pain in his foot. He played through it against Ball State. He played through it against Indiana. Little did we know the foot would break in early January. It was headed that way right after Maui - except nobody really knew it. And that one-man recruiting class - D.J. Harvey - was headed for microfracture knee surgery.

Wadelite

2:19

Tom, I believe you are over rating how good the 17-18 team was. With the right draw they might have won 2 NCAAT games, but this team healthy lost at home to ball state and then blew a lead versus a mediocre Indiana team, largely due to Bonzie not blocking out a walk on. Oh yeah, that team had a freshman class of one. These zero or one man recruiting classes have contributed to this slide.

Thomas Noie

2:19

JT: Sometimes some accountability has to come from within. That's the way Mike Brey treats his guys. He's not going to bench them for a missed assignment. He's going to get them to be accountable, and then be better the next time. That's where this has gone off the rails. The overall feeling is, eh, why bother?

2:18

Tough season Tom. Lack of accountability and the threat of bench time goes a long way. "We are losing with you, we can lose without you," can go a long way sometimes. How many times have we seen a player shoot a 3 and watch him stand and watch as the opponent goes down for a fast break score? How many times not matching up inside/out on transition defense? Not blocking out for a rebound? No accountability!

Thomas Noie

2:17

Matt: My previous answer applies to your observation. Well said.

Matt from Campus

2:17

Do you think this group having to play so much as freshman actually hurt them? I assumed at the time it would help them get acclimated faster, but would they have been better off not playing if the team had the choice? Also, what happened in Section 115 yesterday was ridiculous. Brey deserves criticism, but also deserves to be treated better than that after all he has done for this program. He is its all time winningest coach! Don't want everyone on here thinking all students are ok with it.

Thomas Noie

2:17

Tyler: Well said. Totally agree. Look at the overall body of work, not just the last four years which have been brutal. Who else does what Mike Brey did at Notre Dame? Who? Anyone? Any coach with an ego or an agenda is out the door the third or fourth time the Big East changed or the arena renovation was put on pause or the practice facility plans fell apart. Mike Brey stayed and put his mark on this program his way. The right way. People who want to dismiss that or forget that or diminish that, man, with fans like that....

Tyler from Niles

2:15

Dinosaurs became extinct animals because they couldn’t adapt to changes progressing through time. There’s no doubt, no matter what happens at the conclusion of this tenure, that Brey dug a hole far too deep to dig out of. Nice guys finishing last will never change. But hey, at least he’ll go down with dignity knowing he took the brunt publicly every time on behalf of his team & his coaching staff. It’s too easy to shovel the blame on somebody/thing else. Give me Mike Brey back in 2000 all over again. And again. And again. Put him at a Maryland or Providence, I think he would of had completely different final results. Until next time, Tom! Thanks for the chat.

Thomas Noie

2:15

Jake: Nobody saw that John Mooney coming, and figured there'd be another one coming along if he was that good. Still, who's to say that his two really good years would've translated into three really good years?

Jake

2:14

As somebody raised the question of how good they’d be with mooney.... we would’ve known if he was redshirted in 2016-17. Instead he was the 10th/11th man and played 46 minutes. Why?

Thomas Noie

2:14

Wade: Shouldn't it also be college basketball 101? It's not rocket science or brain surgery and it doesn't take Will Hunting on the sideline to decipher the best way to break a press.

Wadelite

2:13

Tom, Brey said he saw similarities with Wertz and Grant and Grant was a serviceable ball handler. Ryan played some point guard at Stanford. With this in mind, I find it astounding that Hubb and those two wilted to full court pressure applied in the games they coughed up to Georgia Tech and Syracuse. It is a clear indictment on the coaching staff that they were not prepared for pressure and that during the game (without fan noise as a factor) they did not adjust. Being prepared to break full court pressure and score off it should be college coaching 101.

Thomas Noie

2:13

Wade: True, but again, I hesitate putting so much expectation on a freshman. Any freshman. It's an adjustment and will be for the guys coming in next year. We saw what happened the last time freshmen were forced to do a lot of the heavy lfiting.

Wadelite

2:12

Tom, there appears to be a tremendous opportunity next season for Wesley and Taylor to be defensive catalysts. Brey or the head coach has to play these guys minutes to set an example to more experienced guys who lolly gag on defense.

Thomas Noie

2:12

Tyler: Just as long as nothing happens one week from today, when I'm scheduled for my first coronavirus vaccine. Fingers crossed I get there before I get/stay busy with basketball stuff.

Tyler from Niles

2:11

If Brey gets forced to retire, how soon after the loss on Tuesday is he relieved of his duties? As unorthodox as ND tends to do things, I’d move quickly- like Wednesday morning quickly. Make it a point to be one of the 1st power 5 jobs open and get going aggressively. With that being said, and this is an honest question, do you think Brey will have any input on the next head coach? Doubt he would even want that but gosh darn it, he’s such a good guy. I want to say he deserves to mention at least a suggestion or two as a thank you.

Thomas Noie

2:11

Caleb: I do think there's frustration throughout, which is why we are where we are today and why this chat has revolved around one central theme. It's one thing to lose games in the ACC. It's another when you're not even competitive. That's where you get into the danger zone.

Caleb from Charlotte

2:10

Tom, it's obvious the fans are very frustrated with the state of the men's basketball program. Do you think the ND administration is similarly frustrated? The lack of competitiveness in games makes this a hard team to root for. I could more easily accept the losing if the effort and spirit was there every game.

Thomas Noie

2:10

Joe: It's what the coach makes it, isn't it? Look, this job had issues when Mike Brey took it - no practice facility, the arena was a dump, the infrastructure needed serious work. But he made it all work. It's never going to be the way it is in football. If you want to grind it and get after it, you can. Top half of the league every single year is not a lot to ask. It really isn't.

joe from the south side

2:09

Tom: How desirable is the HC job at ND? While we all speculate as to who, would people be knocking on the door to fill the slot? Coaches talk. Surely they know the standards at ND are going to hamper rather than help. We've discussed the fact that of the top 100 HS SRs, ND an recruit, maybe a dozen of those kids. I would think it's the same with the coaching slot. Only so many guys are gong to check enough boxes.

Thomas Noie

2:07

It's all good my man

Mike - Fort Worth

2:07

I'm not complaining about your question! A totally fair one. Simply just surprised a few students chanting kind of snowballed to the current state of (public) affairs. No disrespect here.

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