Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/87622
No. 7 Notre Dame foot- ball team, the convoy of ESPN GameDay trucks unloading and the cru- cial tilt with No. 17 Stanford, Fighting Irish men's basketball coach Mike Brey quietly pulled the curtain back to reveal his 2012-13 squad. He's more than content that the spotlight is trained on something else, but he also realizes folks are eager for the team's sec- ond act. It's a team like no W hile campus was buzzing last Thurs- day about the other in recent memory in South Bend — big, athletic, big, experienced and big — and saddled with monstrous expecta- tions after a 22-12 record last season that took ev- eryone by surprise. "When you start with BY WES MORGAN is trained on one prize at a time, beginning with a regular-season crown that has eluded the pro- gram since it joined the Big East in 1995. "When we came back the experience coming back, that is a great place to start in college bas- ketball," said Brey, who returns all five starters from a year ago and is eager to put a talented freshman class, par- ticularly forwards Cam Biedscheid (6-7, 186 pounds) and Zach Au- ish that counts, and the Irish, which rattled off nine consecutive victo- ries in Big East Confer- ence play, starting with a home upset over top- ranked Syracuse Jan. 21, ran out of steam at the wrong time, losing to eventual league cham- pion Louisville in the conference semifinals and to Xavier in the sec- ond round of the NCAA Tournament . Notre Dame finished third in the regular-season standings with a 13-5 mark. For now, Brey's focus guste (6-10, 230), to use. It's where you fin- on the road. "Since we've been pretty darn close to that and been in the mix be- fore, it's a realistic thing that we talked about through the spring and the summer. That's kind of where we've ended [talk of goals]. Regular season — try to do that." It's clear, though, Brey from the Xavier loss in the NCAA Tourna- ment, when we got back the next day we talked about chasing a regular-season champi- onship in the Big East," he said. "With the draw that we have in league play, that's going to be a heckuva challenge with Louisville twice, Cincy twice and St. John's twice, and who we play believes he has a team that's capable of much more. He's even holding an open-to-the-public practice Oct. 23 at South Bend's Kroc Community Center to show it off, something Brey hasn't done in his 12 previous seasons. It will be Irish fans' first look at 6-10, 246-pound center Gar- rick Sherman, a senior with junior eligibility who transferred to Notre Dame last fall from Michigan State; forward Eric Katenda (6-9, 222), who enrolled last win- ter after an injury in the summer left him blind in one eye; and Biedscheid and Auguste. "I think it is some- thing new for Notre Dame, but not neces- sarily something new for college basketball teams that are success- ful," Sherman said of ND having multiple big