News & Views: Mike Brey Discusses New Additions, Altered Reality And More
Mike Brey, self-anointed “Zoom master,” held his first virtual press conference with reporters Wednesday afternoon. The Notre Dame basketball coach touched on a number of items regarding his team’s new reality and his thoughts on the roster. Most importantly, Notre Dame announced the additions of Trey Wertz and Tony Sanders Jr.
We give our take on several of Brey’s comments in News & Views format.
NEWS: Wertz and Sanders sent in the required paperwork Wednesday, the first day of the spring signing period, giving Notre Dame 11 players for next year.
Wertz, the Santa Clara transfer guard, will (for now) sit out during the 2020-21 season and have two years of eligibility left beginning in 2021-22. Sanders, a three-star wing from Miami, is the third freshman in the Irish’s 2020 class.
BREY (on Wertz): “Good off-the-dribble skill set. He’s got a 6-foot-11 wingspan and length is always important in this game. He’s 180 but by the time he takes the floor for us I bet he will be 195, maybe 200.
“He really saw an opportunity in the style of play. I knew we were in good shape when he texted me in the process, ‘Coach, I’ve been on Synergy and do you see me playing like Jerian Grant in your system?’ I said, ‘Yes. Bingo.’”
BREY (on Sanders): “A 6-foot-7 guy who just knows how to play and is good with the ball. He’s going to be a great four-year investment for us. Feel for the game, athletic ability, knows how to play.”
VIEWS: Notre Dame wrapped these two up without any suspense, a fitting end to efficient, drama-free recruitments.
Unsurprisingly, Brey assumes Wertz will sit this season. It seems as if he’d even prefer it given Notre Dame’s returning backcourt. He has been on record before saying he’s opposed to the rule that could give all transfers one-time immediate eligibility, which the NCAA will vote on in May.
Wertz’s wingspan is one reason Brey floated the idea of him seeing time at the three, presumably next to Cormac Ryan and Prentiss Hubb. Doing so would, among other things, open up more opportunities for Wertz as a shooter.
On Sanders, Brey didn’t offer a projection for an immediate role. He repeated his frustration that he cannot spend much time with Sanders or fellow freshmen Matt Zona or Elijah Taylor this summer in weight room or in the limited time coaches have with players in normal summers. Until then, it is hard to understand what most freshmen who aren’t top-50 recruits can provide until they’re put in the college setting.
NEWS: Notre Dame landed Sanders and Wertz without either having visited campus or any in-person contact. Save for assistant Ryan Humphrey going to see two of Sanders’ games, the recruitments were all virtual.
BREY: “In this climate recruiting right now, young people and their families are having to be more decisive. So are coaches and institutions. You know what? That’s a good thing.
“How many times have we gotten into a thing where a kid says, ‘I think I know what I want to do but I want to take two more visits.’ Then I fly back to the school and do the home visit. We do waste a lot of time and money on that front. Maybe coming out of this, we can streamline our recruiting more and everyone can be more decisive.”
VIEWS: Coaches should look at what habits picked during this time of virtual recruiting should become permanent ones.
Now more than ever, high school or junior college film is widely available. Synergy is a staple in recruiting. Now, it is a lifeline, with film study being the only means of evaluation. One wonders if that is indeed for the best.
Spring recruiting in particular features instances of teams signing players just to sign them. Every year, there are high school recruits who wait to sign until the spring and pick up offers a level above what they previously had.
Sometimes it works great. When those offers are extended just to hit a number, though, teams signs kids they simply shouldn’t have signed and who aren’t good enough to earn a role at that level.
Visits are important, but the absence of them gets rid of one reason for a player to extend the process or perhaps to enjoy the ride even if his mind is made up. Everyone’s on equal footing, in a way. Whoever has done the best job building relationships or laying out a player’s fit will be in a good spot.
NEWS: With summer school online through early July and perhaps longer, Prentiss Hubb won’t have the offseason to strengthen his grip on the team as its leader.
BREY: “It was huge. I’m frustrated that we’ll miss most of the offseason togetherness. But I don’t think it’ll take long to pick up on it in September if we can get back in some normalcy. Everyone coming back knows it’s Prentiss Hubb’s team. It was Prentiss Hubb’s team the last half of the season.”
VIEWS: Summers are an important time for team building, but at this point Hubb’s place isn’t up for debate or change. He is Notre Dame’s lead guard and offensive focal point. The Irish will go where he takes them. Off the floor, he was already a respected voice.
Perhaps, a normal offseason would have hammered the point home to the one person to whom it matters most: Hubb himself. The next part of his development as a lead guard is more aggression as a scorer and passer. The sooner that comes, the sooner it takes effect on the rest of the team as well as they take to Hubb’s personality.
Dropping the turnover rate below 20 percent is on the list for Hubb, too, but with a high-usage player who is given a lot of responsibility, turnovers will happen.
NEWS: Brey is making no assumptions about the season going as planned.
BREY: “Do we start basketball December 1 or do we just play a league schedule? They’ll figure it out to have an NCAA Tournament, because we can’t miss it again. Would it be April Madness or May Madness? I don’t have any information on this, but I’m trying to speculate on it.”
VIEWS: The NCAA already took a 53 percent reduction in financial distributions from the tournament as a result of this year’s canceled March Madness. If there’s a reason the college basketball season can’t start the season on time, that spells further financial uncertainty given that college football would undeniably have been affected.
The absence of or decline in football revenue would be catastrophic and perhaps lethal for sports at some Division I schools. A second disruption in NCAA Tournament distributions would exacerbate an already bad situation.
One way or another, as Brey said, it has to happen. The same goes for the 2020 football season.
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