Mike Brey and the Hoops Program

In following with our story in Monday's Journal Gazette about the state of the Notre Dame athletics program, we also decided to focus on one individual sport to get that coach's take on where they stand.

We figured there would be no better place than the men's basketball program, which is coming off of an NCAA berth and appears to be on the rise in the conference.

Insights: "Where is the state of the men's basketball program right now?"

Notre Dame basketball coach Mike Brey: "I think we're, I love our position. I think we're extremely competitive in the league now. The league has changed drastically. We have very good momentum where we are at. It is a dogfight in the league for one of those bids. When you think this year, we only got six bids and Connecticut and Syracuse didn't get bids, it tells you how competitive it is to get bids.

"...With the youth we have, the young players we have, I feel we are in a very good position and I am excited about our future considering the young kids we have in our program, the young kids we have coming in and the kids we're involved with. I'm also excited about the physical plant improvements we've done here. It shows a commitment to basketball that we're kind of going for it more in men's basketball. That's the feel I've gotten from my bosses the past couple years and especially the past year with what we've done to the offices.

"...I feel good about our future but just like the other 15 guys in the league, we're concerned about how many NCAA Tournament bids we can get out of a 16 team league. We went eight and then went six. We are also going to 18 league games and that is new territory. What does that mean? We're nervous about that. The coaches are nervous about it. The fans love it. The commissioner loves it because it gives him more inventory for TV but the other 15 guys in my seat are going 'Uhh, OK, how are we doing this?' But that's the gig. That's the deal."

Insights: Looking back a couple months, how critical was the NCAA Tournament bid?

MB: "It was very critical. The one thing about my situation here is that I've always had great support here. When you look at those numbers and look at the kids graduating the program, I'm very proud of how we run it and very confident in how we run it. The young guys' confidence and everybody, getting one of those bids, stealing one of those bids was very important. I think it was, it was just important for overall confidence of everybody, including the head coach. It was certainly an important one. Was it a make-or-break one? Wasn't a make-or-break one. But it was a critical one for the momentum considering what we are doing with the physical plant and those types of things. You look at the body of work, the body of work when you compare to other teams in the league and what they've done academically. One of the things that has been stressed here has been the overall mission. It's not just basketball when they hired me and I'm in line with that. That's why I'm still here. I like coaching the kids we still have here."

Insights: With the transfer of Joe Harden, where does that leave recruiting?

MB: "You have another scholarship but in all honesty, in the last month, I have recruited the rising junior class as much as the rising senior class because that class is extremely important for us, the current rising junior class. Not to say the rising senior class guys aren't and we're going to sign a guy or two. Who that will be we'll keep digging and investigating. But one of my biggest goals in July is to really plug in to the next class, maybe more than any other time I've been here because we are very young and we could possibly put a current freshman back or two. You look at our roster and even with an open scholarship, we still had a lot of guys who are young and good players. You want to have depth but you want to be smart about the next class, too. There is, probably more than ever before, we need to watch both classes and how do we want to mix this together over two years because of our youth."

Insights: With Harden leaving, does that change the status of Tim Abromatis or Ty Proffitt?

MB: "Not really. We talked to Tim about that on the front end of our recruiting. He's the only one of our four guys that we did. Is another one of those guys a candidate? Possibly. You can really look at that and the great thing, the new rule is they can play through the exhibitions and you can still put them on a five-year so there is plenty of time to evaluate that and see where you are, health-wise.

"Ryan Ayers would have been red-shirted as a freshman but we only had 10 on scholarship and Kyle McAlarney went down with a back problem for 10 days and we thought it would be reoccurring throughout the season so as far as that goes, that was out the window and we needed all 10 guys. He and Zach (Hillesland) had to be eligible even though they didn't play much. With 12 scholarship guys, you have more depth and can move bodies around a little bit more and you have eight returning guys that have all been in the battle and had varying degrees of success."

Keep a look out. We return officially July 23. In the meantime, enjoy Copa America and the random pop-ins from others on The Journal Gazette staff.

-By Michael Rothstein of The Journal Gazette