Why Mike Brey puts ‘immense pressure’ on himself to reach NCAA Tournament
Even through a computer screen, the weight on Notre Dame men’s basketball head coach Mike Brey’s shoulders was visible as he delivered his final postmortem of a bizarre and frustrating 2020-21 season.
North Carolina had just bullied his team off the floor in a 101-59 ACC Tournament defeat that was even more lopsided than the final score indicated.
The Irish finished 11-15 and missed the NCAA Tournament for the fourth straight year. In this moment, he understood a fifth wasn’t an option, even if his blunt acknowledgement of reality didn’t overflow with confidence a tournament return would happen. In the aftermath of that kind of defeat, how could anyone project confidence?
“That’s the crossroads we’re at, absolutely,” Brey said then, matter of factly.
Seven months later, and Brey still has the same understanding. But this time, standing in the Rolfs Athletic Center lobby before Notre Dame’s first preseason practice, he’s eager to take on the challenge. Excited about his veteran team. His rebooted coaching staff. The feeling of normalcy. The absence of a cloak of constant COVID-19 uncertainty. He sounded like his normal easygoing, candid self.
“I’m very motivated to get us back,” Brey said. “We’ve gone through that cycle a couple times. I think 2007 was probably the last time where I’ve been in the same frame of mind that we really need to get back. I put immense pressure on myself to do that. We’ve certainly made some changes with staff that I felt we really needed to do to be in the best position.”
In came Anthony Solomon for his third tour as a Notre Dame assistant, this time as associate head coach. Former Irish guard Antoni Wyche joined the staff in the summer. Rod Balanis, who had been on Brey’s staff since his hiring in 2000, shifted to an operations role before leaving altogether to become the associate head coach at Howard.
The roster, though, remains largely unchanged. The Irish reeled in Yale grad transfer Paul Atkinson Jr. to play center, replacing the departed Juwan Durham. Freshmen and South Bend-area natives Blake Wesley and J.R. Konieczny have staked a strong early claim to rotational roles.
Aside from Atkinson and at least one freshman, the rotation and starting lineup will be largely the same, but with a senior class designation next to most of the names. Their goal was to get faster, stronger and more skilled. To find some other gear they hadn’t reached that would take them to the goal they need to reach.
“I like where we’re at,” Brey said. “It was a long spring as we went through re-evaluation. The one thing that hasn’t changed is we have five of our top six scorers back. We have a pretty good group back. When you add Paul Atkinson, we have six men who have played a lot of basketball.”
Brey began the offseason by serving up a spoonful of humility to himself and his players. He had everyone over to his house for Selection Sunday to watch the bracket reveal, even though Notre Dame was nowhere near the periphery of tournament discussion. He wanted his players to see the raw euphoria of the teams that make it, adding a visual and an emotional element to the next 12 months’ task.
“At the end, I said, ‘Fellas, I really want you to experience this,’” Brey said. “They’re seeing teams cheer when they get a bid. There’s nothing like that day and we’ve missed it for a couple years. For a basketball coach, that’s Christmas, when it goes well.”
Brey has been here before, particularly in the 2006 offseason. He entered Year 7 of his tenure with three straight tournament misses and mounting pressure to get back. He had a group that hadn’t tasted an NCAA Tournament berth but had to go filch one. They succeeded.
Now, entering season No. 22 with that same back-against-the-wall feeling, he thinks the outcome can be the same as 2007. Because of this core that’s older, motivated and edgy. Because of the new coaching voices that surround them. Because of his voice as someone who has spent a season on the brink and backed himself and his program off it.
“It’s really simple where we want to go,” Brey said. “We have to methodically get there and day-to-day, do all that. We started last spring with, ‘This is what you guys want to do. Let’s go do it.’”
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