In Thursday’s official statement confirming Mike Brey’s retirement at the end of this college basketball season, Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick noted that the inevitable transition to a new era had populated the pair’s private conversations for a little while now. Here’s guessing Swarbrick hoped he’d retire and leave the next person in his chair to continue the discussion. And, most importantly, figure out what comes next.
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Replacing the winningest coach in program history, who was an ideal fit for a sometimes thankless job, is not an enviable task. Even at a place like Notre Dame. Maybe especially at a place like Notre Dame.
The 63-year-old Brey will exit the stage in March and get to spend all that time at Rehoboth Beach he’s talked about through the years, creating an odd dynamic to navigate.
Notre Dame’s ACC membership, arena upgrades and investment in a new practice facility theoretically make this a prime gig. But Notre Dame’s academic expectations, its idiosyncrasies in campus life and the attention- and resource-gobbling monolith that is football add layers of complication. It should be a job people come running for. But it’s more complicated than that. “Not sure there’s a shoo-in,” one industry source said, when asked to opine on who could be in the running.
There’s a lot more to navigate at Notre Dame than just running a program. The search begins for the next great fit right now.
Job evaluation
Tough, but fair.
Tough, because there will be an expectation to succeed at a pretty high level while being forever an afterthought to football. Brey’s 481 wins (and counting) established that winning shouldn’t be that hard in South Bend. The back-to-back Elite Eight runs in 2015 and 2016 established that making a postseason cameo here or there isn’t enough — Notre Dame should be in position to make some NCAA Tournament noise on occasion. This is where the bar is set.
Fair, though, because no one expects Final Four appearances on the regular. No one even expects ACC titles on an annual basis. Notre Dame wants its men’s basketball program to be regularly competitive and cause absolutely zero headaches outside the realm of the gym. That’s the reality. And, well, when things aren’t going so well, as they’re wont to do sometimes? The year-round obsession with football offers some pretty nice cover, actually.
No doubt @NDMikeBrey will be missed for his humor and good nature, but can’t underscore enough the job he did at @NDmbb. No one will pity the Irish, but it was a tough gig in the Big East and a tough gig in the ACC. He figured out how to make it work for years.
— Dana O’Neil (@DanaONeilWriter) January 19, 2023
Facilities are no longer an issue; they’re about as good as they’ll get after the Purcell Pavilion facelift a decade ago and the opening of the Rolfs Athletics Hall practice facility in 2019. Depending on how big a swing the administration is willing to take, offering something like a $4-5 million a year deal, give or take, is not entirely out of the question. (This, of course, will depend on the leverage and track record of said potential hire.) Notre Dame probably won’t ever spend like Duke or North Carolina on men’s basketball, lingering more toward the middle of the pack of ACC schools. But pretty much anything the new staff will need to recruit will be at their fingertips.
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In short: Resources, once a bane of the program’s existence, aren’t an excuse anymore.
Candidate list
(in alphabetical order)
Darian DeVries, Drake head coach. The Bulldogs should record their fifth 20-win season in five years under DeVries’ guidance. They don’t blind you with tempo, but the former Greg McDermott assistant did direct a top-30 offense a couple of years back. He’s a systematic fit, and he works for a former Notre Dame staffer, Drake athletic director Brian Hardin, who probably won’t offer a discouraging word.
Martin Ingelsby, Delaware head coach. What the 44-year-old has accomplished in seven years with the Blue Hens is remarkable: a raging tire fire of a program built into an NCAA Tournament entrant in 2022. The former Notre Dame guard and Brey assistant knows the place better than anyone possibly could, which is no small thing. It’s really a question of whether Notre Dame wants a break from the Brey tree after its recent dip in results.
Pat Kelsey, Charleston head coach. The 47-year-old has been South Carolina-bound for the entirety of his head coaching career, winning big at Winthrop and now Charleston. (Current career winning percentage: .667.) But he’s a Cincinnati native who made assistant coach stops at Wake Forest and Xavier, a pair of Notre Dame-ish institutions.
Dusty May, Florida Atlantic head coach. Talk to those who are close to May and they’ll tell you he’s actually happier at a Conference USA job than you might expect. But isn’t that what they all say? May is an Indiana native. He’ll get ringing endorsements from Brian White (his athletic director) and Mike White (his close friend and former boss), who are the sons of former Notre Dame athletic director Kevin White.
Porter Moser, Oklahoma head coach. Moser is in Norman because he wanted a job where the caprices of conference tournaments didn’t determine NCAA Tournament bids. But he also loved the Loyola Chicago culture and the proximity to his beloved Chicago Cubs. Notre Dame could offer the best of both worlds and a way to avoid dealing with the snake pit of the SEC in coming years. Can the school put together an offer Moser can’t refuse?
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Micah Shrewsberry, Penn State head coach. Shrewsberry would be a home-run fit as a tactician and a coach who develops talent over time, which is the sort of program Notre Dame has to be. And the leadership in South Bend is shrewd enough to know what other jobs might open this offseason. The announcement of Brey’s retirement — in mid-January — allows Notre Dame to get the jump on, say, oh, I don’t know, let’s just throw a name out there like … Georgetown.
Chris Quinn, Miami Heat assistant coach. Hard to imagine a search that doesn’t include an exploratory call to the 39-year-old former Irish star. Quinn did spend one year as an assistant in the college ranks, too, at Northwestern, before moving on to Erik Spoelstra’s staff. But would he be interested in returning to the college game, or does he want to pursue eventual NBA head coach opportunities?
Sean Sweeney, Dallas Mavericks assistant coach. Would be an out-of-the-box choice, for sure. But the Minnesota native has a couple years of administrative experience at the college level before starting the climb up the NBA ladder, he has a place in South Bend and he’d bring a certain rah-rah energy to the gig that might jolt the program and its base.
Monty Williams, Phoenix Suns head coach. This is probably a shoot-the-moon proposition, to bring one of the program’s all-time greats back into the fold. The Suns have a ton of talent. But they were also 12th in the Western Conference as of Thursday morning. Does Notre Dame have the cash and emotional pull to make it a decision?
Brian Hamilton’s hire …
Ingelsby cuts the precise profile of a Notre Dame head coach, and had Brey retired after his team’s 2021-22 run, here’s guessing his former assistant would be in the job.
But here’s also guessing Swarbrick now wants to go big. And has the resources to do so.
In which case Notre Dame should do everything imaginable to put Shrewsberry or Moser in charge of the next era. There are plenty of viable failsafes to pick from after that.
(Top photo of Micah Shrewsberry: Mike Mulholland / Getty Images)
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