Mike Brey and a former understudy will coach against each other again this coming season — and Brey is making a sacrifice to make it happen.
Notre Dame will play at Howard in a non-conference game Dec. 12, according to a report from Jon Rothstein. It is the return game of a home-and-home series that began in 2019-20. Howard is coached by Kenny Blakeney, who played at Duke from 1992-95 (when Brey was there) and was an assistant under Brey at Delaware from 1997-2000. One of Blakeney’s assistants is Eric Atkins, who played guard for Brey and Notre Dame from 2010-14.
Howard is one of three known Notre Dame non-conference opponents this year. The Fighting Irish will host Army, Rothstein reported earlier this week, with a date not yet announced. They will play Purdue in the Crossroads Classic in December. They are also slated to host a game in the ACC/Big Ten challenge in late November, but the opponent has not been announced.
Howard finished 4-29 in Blakeney’s first season as head coach and went 1-15 in the MEAC. The Bison beat three Division I opponents and won a game in the MEAC Tournament. They finished at No. 350 in the KenPom.com rankings.
Notre Dame hosted Howard on Nov. 12, 2019, and defeated the Bison 79-50.
This is not the first instance of Brey scheduling road games against his former assistants. The most recent one was a December 2017 trip to Delaware, which is coached by ex-Notre Dame assistant Martin Inglesby. The Irish won 92-68. A return game in that series is not likely to happen.
Though Brey told BlueandGold.com in March that the fallout of NCAA event cancelations would make this season’s non-conference schedule different than its usual structure, the trip to Howard was previously scheduled and is not part of a change.
Brey hinted that he will not follow the typical structure of eight guarantee games, which Notre Dame pays around $720,000 ($90,000 per game) for each year. Brey said that’s not likely to be possible because of the financial impact of events already canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and uncertainty of future revenue disruptions.
Financial distributions from the NCAA tournament were sliced by more than 60 percent, the NCAA announced in March. Instead of a projected $600 million payout, the NCAA will distribute $225 million to Division I basketball institutions as a result of the tournament’s cancelation. The College World Series was also canceled.
“Do we start to play more home-and-home series and not buy as many games?” Brey said. “And are these home-and-homes, are they bus rides if they are road games?”
Home-and-homes or road-only series for Notre Dame typically don’t involve guarantee payments.
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