Gruen: Appreciate Mike Brey For What He Is -- One Of Country's Best Coaches
By Seth Gruen--
(CBS) Typically I'm into categorizing a coach as "underrated."
We don't exactly poll the collective college basketball fan base in attempt to understand such a phenomenon. So what does that really mean when any of my media brethren file someone under that heading? That we — I mean media folks — collectively haven't given that coach the attention he deserves? I guess it's a roundabout way of saying "our bad."
Though this isn't a setup for some sort of exception for Notre Dame coach Mike Brey, who I've praised as one of the country's great coaches for some time, I'm here to tell you he deserves more attention. That's not necessarily from the collective college basketball fan base or even the medai, but from a group of Notre Dame fans that largely under-appreciate basketball.
I've spent enough time on campus to know that this time of year, a frenzied, diehard Irish fan base tends to turn its attention toward spring football. Basketball hasn't provided much tradition anyways — the exceptions being the Digger Phelps and, now, Brey eras.
But Irish fans, who likely have become more consumed by the NCAA Tournament the past couple of years, need to throw their support toward the basketball team earlier. They should attend regular-season games with the same devotion as football. Notre Dame is a tough team to play, and the Joyce Center should be just as tough a home court too.
In his first season at Notre Dame, Brey ended Notre Dame's 11-year tournament drought by taking the Irish to the 2001 NCAA Tournament. He has a .669 career winning percentage with the Irish. Still, tugging the spotlight toward his program has still been tough. After all, the "Touchdown Jesus" isn't signaling a made three. Notre Dame is as football-y a football school as they come.
It's time to make more room for basketball.
The most successful coach on the Mike Krzyzewski tree, Brey has taken his program to six of the last seven tournaments. A win over Wisconsin on Friday would give Notre Dame its second straight Elite 8 appearance.
The most impressive stat of all: Krzyzewski has lost four games to former assistants, and each one has come against Brey and the Irish.
If he wanted, Brey could target a high-profile job like struggling UCLA or North Carolina, where rumors of retirement have followed coach Roy Williams this season. But Brey appears content staying at Notre Dame, whose athletic department and administration have appreciated Brey. The university signed him to a 10-year contract in 2012.
Brey also likely believes he can win a national championship with the Irish. This program is creeping into the national conversation and recruits should, if they haven't already, started to notice.
That will cause headaches for Illinois' in-state programs. South Bend is actually closer to the Chicago metropolitan era than Champaign, home of the Illini. And the Irish are in a different stratosphere with Brey leading the program.
I'm not foolish enough to think Notre Dame will ever become a basketball school, but the football team can't win any games in the spring.
Save that for Brey's basketball squad, which has done so in bunches lately. And just be sure to rate Brey for what he has become: one of America's best college basketball coaches.
Seth Gruen is columnist for CBSChicago.com, focusing on college sports. You can follow him on Twitter @SethGruen.
