Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/234294
UPON FURTHER REVIEW TODD D. BURLAGE "H Finding Another Coaching Miracle ow do you take the next step?" That was the question asked last March by Notre Dame men's basketball coach Mike Brey, immediately following his team's 76-58 blowout loss to Iowa State in the opening game of the NCAA Tournament. The circumstances for Brey are different nine months later, but the question remains the same. How exactly will his Irish "take the next step" after learning they will have to survive the rest of this season without senior guard Jerian Grant? Grant, the team's leading scorer and easily its best player, issued a six-paragraph statement via UND.com confirming reports that he was no longer enrolled in school "because of an academic matter that I did not handle properly." No additional details were provided other than Grant plans to work hard toward reinstatement, and return to Notre Dame to finish his degree and rejoin the team for the 2014-15 season. The news of Grant's suspension rocked the basketball program in exactly the same way the football team was jarred last May when Irish starting quarterback Everett Golson was expelled for the 2013 football season for "poor academic judgment." It's hard to imagine a university such as Notre Dame losing its star quarterback on the football team and its leading scorer on the basketball team to academics in the same year, but that's exactly If head coach Mike Brey is to lead the Irish to the NCAA Tournament for the fifth consecutive season, he must find a way to compensate for the loss of leading scorer Jerian Grant. PHOTO BY JOE RAYMOND what happened. With an experienced backup in senior Tommy Rees to take the starting quarterback duties, the Irish football team was adequately equipped to absorb the loss of Golson. The basketball team appears to have no such silver lining, and it has been put