Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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MEN'S BASKETBALL BY ANDREW OWENS E ntering his 15th season at Notre Dame, Mike Brey is seeking a re- invention. The Irish head coach would be the first to admit that the program's maiden voyage in the Atlantic Coast Conference was anything but a cake- walk after Notre Dame had reached the NCAA Tournament in four con- secutive seasons. This time around, Brey expects the familiarity to breed success. "I really feel like I'm back when I took the job in 2000," Brey said at the program's media day Oct. 15. "When I took the job in 2000, we were 30 games under .500 in the Big East and we were scratching and clawing to figure out an identity. I thought we did a good job of that. I feel we're back in that mode again. Who are we going to be? How do we keep tweaking to have a consistent identity and one that we achieved in the Big East? "I don't think I have all the infor- mation yet, but I've got some good starters and I had a chance to work on it this summer with the foreign tour." That late-summer foreign tour in Italy not only allowed the Irish to suit up in four exhibition games in Au- gust, but also permitted Notre Dame to practice an extra 10 times. After last Mike Brey Seeks New Identity For Irish In Year Two In The ACC After guiding the Irish to an impressive four-year stretch (97-41 overall and 48-24 in the Big East) from 2009-13, Brey suffered his first losing season (15-17, 6-12 ACC) at Notre Dame in 2013-14. PHOTO BY JOE RAYMOND