Just a little preemptive post to avoid some of the comments that have been popping up on other Notre Dame fan sites.
If you want to criticize the coaching staff, by all means feel free. However, make sure you have specific criticisms and the facts to back it up. Let's avoid the "Mike Brey sucks" and mindless ranting that so often ruins what could be a good conversation about the future of the program. Once again, I think most if not all of you have been model citizens here in the past, so I'm not expecting anything untoward.
That said, I'd be shocked to see a coaching change this season. Maybe Virginia or Maryland will open up, leaving Coach Brey and the University with an opportunity to separate amicably. Who knows. I'm thinking about doing a little research on some possible names for a short list post should the job become available, so feel free to drop any names you think might be a good fit.
Hey, I'm as frustrated as of you. However, eventually I think we'll end up in the same position as the football team. Coach with an ultimatum to improve next season or be shown the door. All things considered, I feel the same way about Coach Brey's job here as I do about Weis (though personally I like Brey a hell of a lot more than Weis). We're closer to where we want to be than when he started, but we might need someone else to take us to the Promised Land. That doesn't make him a bad guy or a bad coach, it just means we might need to move in a different direction soon.
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"When you're picked in the top, you get the A schedule, and frankly that was a little hard for us to manage," Brey said. "I never thought we were going to be champions of this league."
This is not something you ever want your coach to say, regardless of truth. Especially since we entered the season with a top 15 ranking. Where's the fire?
Brey did not have his best year. Here are my concerns: Recruiting quality Big East players; Team toughness; Severe miscalculation of team's strengths and weaknesses - unwillingness to scrap flawed plan until it was too late; absolutely wearing the starters out by the end of the season.
No more trips to Ireland and Hawaii before the season. Get some length and athletic guys who bang the board. Get some guards over 6' tall.
You can bet your bottom dollar Swarbrick is not happy. Brey is not getting the UVA or MD. job. My guess is Jeff Capel at UVA and Gary Williams stays at MD.
Hey B&G - can we start playing the "bring so-and-so-in-to-coach" game.
The NIT can do a couple of things for ND. Teams that win the NIT tend to have very good years the next year. ND can also get to 20 wins with a couple of W's.
N.I.T winners that get better the next year? First of all we won't win the N.I.T. Second, young teams that have most of their players returning can benefit greatly.
In my hummble opinion a team that was ranked in the top ten and doesn't loose anyone during the season to injurys winning the N.I.T. is know great accomplishment.
One last thing, if Carlton Scott stays in this program I'll be shocked. He has to realize that his chance of getting any playing time with Brey at the helm are someplace between s___ and none!
I do find it riotous that many think that somehow Brey would be fired this off season [not to mention that such action would be stupid and counter productive, possibly landing us in Indiana-land].
That said, what I want to see from Brey:
1. In the off season, he needs to shake up his coaching staff and bring in someone with a tenacious defensive mind. It also wouldn't hurt to maybe look for a better 'bigs' coach. I'd also like to see him land at least 2 quality guards [Buie and Brust would be my picks].
2. Next season I want to see him play a 9-10 man rotation with a renewed commitment with playing a solid man defense most if not all of every game. No one should average more than 30 minutes [save maybe Luke and Tory]. I'd like to see more of a willingness to experiment with lineups based on the competition. I'd like to see more solid plays drawn up coming out of time outs. And I'd like to see him get in the refs grille a bit more and back up his players - about 75% of the big eat schedule both Kyle and Luke were getting mugged and he saved his technical for last night?
If we don't make it back to the NCAA and he doesn't land a class at least as good as the one coming in, then Swarbrick has a legit case to part ways [but if at least one of those 2 happens, Brey gets at least another year beyond that].
Coach Brey has made a lot of comments that make you scratch your head. While it's refreshing to see that he doesn't have any unrealistic expectations for the team, that's not something you say publicly. Fans and talking heads can prognosticate all they want, but you want your players and coaches expecting to win every single game.
We need to see a renewed commitment to defense next year (we dropped 57 places to 99th in tempo free D this season). I understand we will never be Louisville (though I love watching their high-intensity press), but a solid defense would really improve our chances with our always steady offense.
I don't care if you have a 6 man rotation some games and clear our the bench on others, just don't get married to a certain rotation of players. It's pretty obvious to the average fan that Ty Nash was a better option than Zach Hillesland most of the year (though other circumstances kept Nash off the floor for most of the year) and you can't tell me that Carleton Scott was clearly less talented than a tired Hillesland or Ryan Ayers. Even just 5-6 minutes a game could have been helpful.
Having multiple wide bodies (assuming that at least one and preferably two of Cooley, Knight, and Broghammer are ready to play) will go a long way towards improving our defense. We were really bad at two point FG defense this season (though I can't say how bad at the moment because kenpom is nonresponsive).
We were 111th, actually a touch better than our three point defense, but I would argue those two are linked. When you only have one good post player (who admittedly isn't the greatest defender), you have to help out on drives a lot more and leave open three point shots on the perimeter. Having a couple more big bodies will make a big difference.
if the 8,9,10,11,12, players are not worth giving any minutes , why recruit them? it was evident the team was tired, condtionig? or lack of ploying time for subs? also, why complain about having problems with long and atheletic team, let's recruit some of these guys. no defense on the perimeter, no rebounding, o or d, leads to a very averaqge team.
Huh. I could swear that earlier in the season our three point FG percentage defense was significantly better (in rank terms) than our two point defense. Maybe it turned around starting with the Louisville game.
"our always steady offense". I beg to differ. It is not uncommon for us to go stretches of 5 and 6 minutes without a basket and it is not always a case of missing open looks.
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