Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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48 SEPT. 30, 2019 BLUE & GOLD ILLUSTRATED MEN'S BASKETBALL BY LOU SOMOGYI E ntering his 20th season at Notre Dame, head coach Mike Brey discovered that maybe he could have had a pretty good career in marketing as well. In a league meeting of the Atlantic Coast Conference coaches a couple of years ago, a discussion on how to bet- ter sell a new college basketball sea- son was bandied about among them. This was mainly because of some sag- ging rankings and some disenchant- ment about FBI investigations going on in the sport because of numerous scandals. Plus, the season was now starting in early November — or right when college football was getting most exciting with playoff rankings and late-season rivalry games. In the meeting, Brey came up with the proposal to have an "opening night" in the ACC to help create a buzz, much like opening day in base- ball and in other sports. He received a thumbs up from his former em- ployer at Duke. "We kind of scatter-shot it around," Brey recalled. "I just said, 'Why doesn't the best league in America have some- thing right out of the gate the first couple of nights?' Mike [Krzyzewski] said, 'Great idea — see, you did learn something from me after all that time you worked for us [1987-94].'" That brainchild of Brey's, com- bined with the new ACC Network that launched on Aug. 22, now has the ACC members opening the new basketball season with league games to whet the appetite. The exclusive early season basketball broadcasts on the new network include: Lou- isville at Miami and Georgia Tech at North Carolina State Nov. 5, plus Notre Dame at North Carolina and Virginia at Syracuse Nov. 6. Three additional conference games will be aired on ESPN2 or ESPNU including Virginia Tech at Clemson (Nov. 5), Wake Forest at Boston Col- lege (Nov. 6) and Florida State at Pitt (Nov. 6). Duke is set to compete in the State Farm Champions Clas- sic (Nov. 5), which will be aired on ESPN. Following last year 's 14-19 dis- appointment, including 3-15 in the ACC, Brey and Co. might have pre- ferred wading easily into the new season. Instead, it was tossed into the deep end of the pool against one of the top three programs in college basketball annals. "Now that I look at who we got I say, 'Oh, s---,'" he said with a laugh. Notre Dame will play a second league game Dec. 7 at home against Boston College, against whom it has won 13 consecutive matchups. The ACC is expanding from an 18- game regular-season league schedule to 20 games this year. The Big Ten was the first conference to do that last season, and its teams received eight NCAA Tournament bids be- cause of how it aided Ratings Per- centage Index (RPI) rankings. Conversely, a couple of ACC teams such as North Carolina State and Clemson that were "on the bubble," were left out but might have been able to sneak in with a stronger RPI that would have included two more league contests. Playing 20 league games necessi- tated not cramming them all in after the New Year, which is why there are now two early league games, the first to open the season in November and a second in December. "Some of the old guard were fight- ing it," Brey said of expanding to 20 league games. "But because of the ACC Network coming on, we had to have more inventory. I kind of liked it because it happened in the Big Ten." Plus, when Notre Dame was in the Big East (prior to 2013), that confer- ence was the first to go from 16 to 18 games in 2008-09, with Notre Dame finishing third that season at 14-4. Head coach Mike Brey championed the concept of the ACC basketball schedule having an "opening night" (or nights) filled with conference match-ups to generate excitement for the league and the sea- son ahead. His idea meshed perfectly with the ACC's expansion to a 20-game conference schedule and the launch of the ACC Network this year. PHOTO BY JOE RAYMOND Will More Be Merrier? ACC expands to 20-game league schedule to enhance competition