Brey Dishes On College Hoops Scandal & More
Notre Dame men’s basketball coach Mike Brey sat down with Pete Thamel of Yahoo! Sports on Tuesday for an open interview focusing on the recent college basketball scandal and trial for a podcast that can be heard here.
During the interview, Brey acknowledged that he was “embarrassed for our profession” over the trial, which focused on adidas allegedly paying recruits and helping steer them to certain schools.
“All coaches, I think we should be embarrassed that it’s gotten to this point,” Brey added. “We’re hoping that we can change some things and fix some things. I don’t know if we’ll have the answers or see any fruition of these rule changes especially with the recruiting calendar maybe for five years. But we’ve got to start somewhere with these things and I hope we can give it a try.”
Brey said he was captivated by the case. Federal laws barred reporters from relaying information from the Manhattan courtroom in real time, so Brey – and probably other coaches – were on standby for updates via Twitter during lunch breaks and upon the conclusion of each day.
“It was riveting quite frankly,” Brey said. “I think I checked in twice a day just to see what was the latest, what was being said.”
He also acknowledged there was more than just a passing curiosity in what was being said in the courtroom.
“Our fraternity is small and the names are familiar, so you were kind of waiting to see who was going to be discussed,” he said. “I think all of you were like, ‘I wonder if our name will come up?’ I think anybody is sitting there going, ‘Are we OK? Did we cross the line with anything?’ It was certainly dramatic and riveting to follow and I think every college coach really followed it closely.”
Brey does believe the attention the case has brought over the last year has helped in some respects.
“I think maybe a positive step is the three shoe companies have been kind of hung out there, so they’ve all stood down a little bit,” he said. “I think their grassroots budgets have really changed dramatically for all of them. That could be a good start for us, that they were exposed and they’re backing up a bit.
Earlier this month, Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski said he didn’t think the problems were wide-ranging within the sport, saying, “It’s a blip. It’s not what’s happening.”
Thamel asked Brey whether he agreed with the comments from Coach K, who Brey served as an an assistant under before becoming a head coach.
“I don’t agree with Mike K’s comments,” Brey admitted. “I think this has been something that has been in our game. I think we do have a high number of coaches doing it the right way, but there are a percentage of guys who have pushed the envelope with the help of the shoe companies that have really made us look bad and have embarrassed
Thamel also asked Brey whether he agreed with Notre Dame Director of Athletics Jack Swarbrick, who recently expressed surprise about the lack of action from ADs and presidents of the schools involved.
“I agree with my boss on that,” said Brey. “We’ve had that discussion. I kind of said, ‘Well, if you were the AD at School X that’s going through this…’ He said, ‘I would really aggressively take some steps with my coach and my assistant coaches.’
“That probably has been surprising to many in the profession, that there’s this wait-and-see. I think we’re all kind of wondering, how does it in end for some of these schools that were strongly implicated in the courtroom last week?”
Brey will take over as president of the National Association of Basketball Coaches next spring and plans on encouraging his fellow coaches to give the recommendations of the Rice Commission a chance.
“Can we try this?” Brey said of what his message will be. “Can we work together and tweak and try and change some things instead of complaining about the new G-League rule or complaining about the regional camps? Can we get some positive stuff around this? Can we give it a try, come back and talk about what we like and don’t like and tweak it for the next year? We get this negative complaining and arguing all of the time that really everybody is tired of.
“I’m going to give it a shot to see if we can get a little more consensus…Let’s try our best to get behind it. Let’s talk behind the scenes about what we need to change and see if we can improve the thing over five years.”
Thamel also asked Brey about the upcoming season for the Irish, which will be Brey’s 19th in South Bend.
Brey talks about why he’s stayed so long, how the move to the ACC reenergized him, what he likes about the profile of player Notre Dame lands, the possibility of bringing one-and-done or two-and-done prospects into the program. He also offers more thoughts on the upcoming season, how he violated one of his own principals with his current group, his current class of freshmen along with the addition of UConn transfer Juwan Durham, why the new facility will be especially important for Notre Dame and his thoughts on the potential of Notre Dame being his final coaching stop.
Listen to the complete interview here.