Notre Dame's men's basketball team inched up the rankings Monday, climbing one spot to No. 20 in the Associated Press media poll and to No. 26 -- one slot outside the Top 25 -- in the USA Today coaches' poll. With two more weeks of soft games before the Big East opener against Louisville, the Irish should be ranked in both polls by that point barring some sort of collapse. CBS Sportsline.com's Gary Parrish has Notre Dame in the NCAA Tournament in its latest projections. Parrish also has the Irish No. 17 in his Top 26. Notre Dame is also climbing up ESPN's Power 16 rankings.
Also, one thing we missed from Saturday evening. Notre Dame coach Mike Brey couldn't help but look back to his youth when he saw Elon coach Ernie Nestor on the opposite sideline. We'll let the coach take it from here.
"Maybe the best week of basketball I ever had was playing for that man at the Five Star Basketball camp in 1976," Brey said. "He and I go way back. Just a heck of a man and you want your son to play for him. We had a good week even though he had to coach a bad point guard like me. But I saw him at the shootaround (Saturday) and he said 'I love your group. Your kids are so focused.'"
Of course, later that night, the bad point guard's group throttled his old coach's team, 94-63.
-By Michael Rothstein of The Journal Gazette
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