Coach Mike Brey decides 23 years at Notre Dame is enough, will leave at end of season

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Mike Brey has been the coach of the Notre Dame men’s basketball program for the past 23 seasons. He doesn't plan to be back for a 24th.

The Tribune learned that Brey, the winningest coach in program history, has decided that this season will be his last.

The school made it official Thursday afternoon.

“Mike and I have talked often in recent years about a future transition in the program’s leadership and during our most recent conversation we reached the mutual conclusion that the end of this season represented the right time,” athletics director Jack Swarbrick said in a statement.

“That Mike (Brey) is the winningest coach in the 119-year history of Notre Dame men’s basketball speaks to his skill as a teacher of the game. His even greater legacy, however, lies in his achievements as an educator and mentor of the young men who played for him. In that sense, he represents this University as well as any coach I have worked with during my time at Notre Dame.”

Said Brey in a statement: “It has been a great run for me and our program over the past two decades, but it is time for a new voice to lead this group into the future. I want to thank our student-athletes, assistant coaches and support staff who have played such a key role in the culture we have created.

“From Fr. Malloy hiring me, to Fr. Jenkins’ guidance and Jack’s (Swarbrick) friendship, I leave this place with immense gratitude to the University and I’m proud of everything we’ve accomplished together. I look forward to working with Jack in any role that can help the Notre Dame family.”

The Jan. 17 home loss to Florida State may have unofficially marked the beginning of the end for Brey. Florida State scored the first 10 points. Nine minutes in, Notre Dame trailed 32-8. It again trailed by 24 points in the second half. Afterward, when fingers required pointing, Brey directed one at himself. It wasn’t the first time, but may have been the last.

He expected to see a team that would dig in and defend and fight after having lost three nights earlier at Syracuse. He saw none of that, and may have finally figured out why. He, Brey said, had spoiled his players.

“I’m probably too nice,” he said. “Probably too, ‘How’s your psyche?’ And ‘How’s your head?’ Be positive. You know Coach Mike does it — ‘Hey, rah, rah. Everybody get confident.’ Anyways.  …

“God, I spoil everybody. Everybody. People who work with me. Everybody’s spoiled. Everybody’s spoiled. ”

When this all went sideways, not even Brey could say for sure. Those closest to him started seeing signs that the end was near as early as the close of the 2020-21 season, which finished without a trip to the NCAA tournament.

That year was impacted by a global pandemic. Notre Dame was the only school among the 15 in the Atlantic Coast Conference not to go on any COVID pause of its own doing that season. It was a point of pride for Brey.

Hired in July 2000 as program’s third coach in three seasons, Brey promised to give Notre Dame, the only job he ever really chased, 10 good seasons. Maybe 15. Hopefully more.

He won three Big East coach of the year honors, got national coach of the year recognition (2011) and consecutive Elite Eights (2015, 2016). He helped take Notre Dame back to the NCAA tournament, a place the program hadn’t been for 11 years, during his first season. Thirteen trips to March Madness followed, including last year’s unexpected run.

Brey insisted that the 2021-22 season, one that saw Notre Dame go 24-11 overall and win a school record 15 league games, had rekindled his coaching passion. It rejuvenated him in many ways. It breathed new life into what had become a stale situation.

He hired two new staff members - assistant coach Hamlet Tibbs and video coordinator Ryan Greer – last offseason and looked forward to an extended future. He even looked to stay beyond his current contract, which runs through the 2024-25 season. At that point, he would have been at Notre Dame for 25 years.

Instead, he’ll end it after season 23. Most were solid. A few were subpar. Soon, there will be someone else on the sideline, but there was nobody who could have done what Brey did in his two-plus decades with the program.

He did it with class. He did it with care for the student-athlete. Being the coach of Notre Dame men’s basketball is hard. Brey so often made it look easy.

Doing fine at a football school

Brey often operated without ego in a profession filled with them. He knew that football came first and often second and third and fourth at Notre Dame. It rarely mattered to him, even though at times, it ate at him. He just wanted to coach, to teach, to educate, to nurture kids through his program who he’d be proud enough to consider like sons. That was the real payoff for Brey, not the wins or the possible trips to Final Fours or even national championships.

That, in many ways, were the marching orders set forth by his bosses — run a respectable program, graduate kids. Do it the right way. Notre Dame basketball again mattered. It was respected — in two leagues. That mattered.

They do it differently at Notre Dame and Brey embraced different. He wasn’t going to get the guys that Duke got and North Carolina got and even Virginia got. Still, he was expected to beat those schools.

When he walked in the back door of the old Joyce Center that Friday afternoon in July 2000, he was promised by Notre Dame former athletic director Kevin White that something would be done with the aging old arena. It needed renovation in the worst way.

Two years, White promised Brey. Give him two years and there’s be a plan in place. It took eight more for that plan to come to fruition. It took nearly a decade longer to finally get a dedicated practice facility. Brey didn’t much care. He coached. He coached in a basement facility — The Pit — fitting for a junior high school team. He found work-arounds in summers when his guys had no gym to call their own. He established an identity in the Big East. He won games. He went to the NCAA tournament. In 2003, He went to the program’s first Sweet 16 in 16 seasons.

The Big East kept evolving, kept changing, kept challenging Notre Dame, but Brey kept on winning. He never complained (that loudly) when the Big East broke apart and Notre Dame athletics outside of hockey and football needed a new conference home. The Irish parachuted into the ACC in 2013. Two years later, Brey had guided the program to its only conference tournament championship.

It beat Duke. It beat North Carolina. It nearly beat Kentucky to get to the Final Four.

End of the road

That ACC title will forever be the high-water mark.

It never got as good after those consecutive Elie Eights, and for various reasons. His recruiting (a lack of it) never produced the kind of classes for Notre Dame to build off those runs. There were injuries (Bonzie Colson, Matt Farrell, Rex Pflueger). There were inconsistencies. The coaching staff needed to be overhauled. There was the pandemic.

Last winter, as Notre Dame raced toward a second-place ACC finish, Brey talked often about the program’s fabric, and how he had everything lined up the way he wanted. The infrastructure, the coaching staff, the players. The program seemed again on firm footing.

Notre Dame, it seemed, had been rebuilt to last. But last March never did last.

This season, everything and everybody was expected to pick up where we left off. With big wins. With big moments. Instead, Notre Dame lost its first five conference contests, each a little more demoralizing than the previous one.

The Irish lost at home. They lost on the road. They lost to bad teams, average teams, good teams. Everything this season was expected to be, it wasn’t. As the losses mounted, Brey had the look of someone who was about out of options.

Nothing Brey did could connect with his guys. In previous seasons, he could always find a way to reach them. First time it didn’t happen – when Notre Dame went 3-15 and finished last in the ACC in 2018-19 - Brey briefly considered walking away, then decided he couldn’t. Not that way.

Next season, Notre Dame improved by seven games to finish 10-10 in the league. Few noticed. They just cared that he didn’t get back to the NCAA tournament.

Coming clear of the early January loss at North Carolina, it finally felt the end was coming. In some ways, Brey seemed at peace with the decision, and the ultimate next direction of the program, wherever that may lead.

It was as if even Brey knew it was ending. Typically, after gut-punch league losses, he’s quick to stand from his seat in the post-game news conference, exit the Hammes Auditorium door and make a quick left, which takes him down and around the Joyce Center perimeter and back toward his office in Rolfs Hall.

He did that after the Florida State game.

Following the Dec. 30 home loss to Miami (Florida), which dropped Notre Dame to 0-3, Brey wrapped up his presser, but stayed seated. Soaked everything in. He did the same Jan. 7 after the loss at North Carolina. Someone approached and wondered what he was doing. Why was he just sitting there?

Brey smiled and stayed seated, then got up and walked off. Three nights later, Notre Dame finally got its first ACC win at home against Georgia Tech. When someone mentioned afterward how badly Notre Dame needed that win, Brey responded “you have no idea how bad(ly) we needed this one.”

Would Brey have walked away at 0-6? Maybe. But the good vibes from league win No. 1 didn’t last – Notre Dame blew a 12-point second half lead and lost to Syracuse four nights later to fall to 1-6.

Every coach believes he has one more job move left in him, one more race he can run. Brey never made that move from Notre Dame, and now likely won’t ever. It’s time to enjoy a life that doesn’t include coaching college basketball, and all the craziness that comes with it.

It ends for every coach in this profession.

On Thursday, it ended for Brey. Come April, he'll be just another former college coach.

Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on Twitter: @tnoieNDI. Contact: (574) 235-6153.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Notre Dame men's college basketball coach Mike Brey to retire