ND Men's Basketball 2015-2016 season

[irishfan]

How is this even a discussion one year removed from ACC Championship and Elite Eight run that took undefeated, all-pro Kentucky to the wire? Any other bracket and we are easily a Final Four team if not CSG. And we want to fire the coach?

We just aren't that great of a team right now, Sweet 16 expectation is unreasonable based on what we are right now. However, losing the first one would definitely be a disappointment.

I didn't need to see WSJ underachiever index to know we were near the top of the list (a bit surprised Duke is on there but then again "underachieving" for a #1 seed is not making the Final Four). My gut says Big East tourney was usually just as bad as the NCAAs, would love to see someone dig up stats on that.

We went on a good run there at the end. Mainly due to us repeatedly getting the double-byes there as well when they were added. Going back to the Big East days, we've made the semifinals in 6 of the last 7 years for our conference tournaments. Obviously, we've only actually won one of those semifinal games, but it's still a pretty good accomplishment.

 

[Ndaccountant]

We went on a good run there at the end. Mainly due to us repeatedly getting the double-byes there as well when they were added. Going back to the Big East days, we've made the semifinals in 6 of the last 7 years for our conference tournaments. Obviously, we've only actually won one of those semifinal games, but it's still a pretty good accomplishment.

That leads us to another point......I think we can say, comfortably, that ND was year in and year out top 5 in the Big East for the final few years and has been the same for the ACC the last two years. Given the strength of those conferences creates a much different day in and day out battle than when Digger coached. For example, I randomly picked the 86/87 schedule and Nd played the like of Brooklyn, La Salle, Fordham, Wagner, Penn, Yale and Creighton all after Jan 1. Before that date, they played two games against more traditional teams, much like what Brey does today. Just something to consider when comparing the two.

 

[gkIrish]

That leads us to another point......I think we can say, comfortably, that ND was year in and year out top 5 in the Big East for the final few years and has been the same for the ACC the last two years. Given the strength of those conferences creates a much different day in and day out battle than when Digger coached. For example, I randomly picked the 86/87 schedule and Nd played the like of Brooklyn, La Salle, Fordham, Wagner, Penn, Yale and Creighton all after Jan 1. Before that date, they played two games against more traditional teams, much like what Brey does today. Just something to consider when comparing the two.

LaSalle was good in the late 80s FYI

 

[Ndaccountant]

LaSalle was good in the late 80s FYI

Not in 86/87.....I checked before writing that comment. They were 20-13 after a run in the NIT, but outside of MAAC action they were 6-7 during the regular season...which is deceiving as those wins included Maine, a sub .500 Nova, Eastern Kentucky, Penn and Northeastern, though Northeastern did win their conference that year.

 

[Irish#1]

How is this even a discussion one year removed from ACC Championship and Elite Eight run that took undefeated, all-pro Kentucky to the wire? Any other bracket and we are easily a Final Four team if not CSG.

the fact that this is a discussion after the past two years in pretty hilarious.

Because gkirish is never happy with our coaches. I suspect if we were in the NCG (basketball or football) every year and won every other year he would be complaining that we should be winning it every year if we're good enough to get there every year. lol

 

[Irish Insanity]

I don't see anything wrong with criticizing coaches. It shouldn't be a sin to desire more from our program.

 

[RDU Irish]

Jerry Seinfeld syndrome

 

[Irish#1]

I don't see anything wrong with criticizing coaches. It shouldn't be a sin to desire more from our program.

I'm open to criticism of our coaches. From a fans perspective we really don't have access to every conversation and thought going on. I think an upgrade in facilities would help Brey attract better talent, thus improve his record. I do think Brey needs to sell and push for the upgrades.

 

[ACamp1900]

Jerry Seinfeld syndrome

Not that there's anything wrong with that....

 

[gkIrish]

Because gkirish is never happy with our coaches. I suspect if we were in the NCG (basketball or football) every year and won every other year he would be complaining that we should be winning it every year if we're good enough to get there every year. lol

Expectations for football: regularly compete for playoffs and national championships. Lose 4 regular season games no more than once every 5 years. Never lose 5. Never lose to Northwestern.

Expectations for basketball: regularly reach the sweet 16, and occasionally do better. Miss the tournament no more than once every 6-7 years.

If a coach isn't meeting those reasonable expectations, I will speak up and call for a new coach. Period.

 

[Ndaccountant]

Expectations for football: regularly compete for playoffs and national championships. Lose 4 regular season games no more than once every 5 years. Never lose 5. Never lose to Northwestern.

Expectations for basketball: regularly reach the sweet 16, and occasionally do better. Miss the tournament no more than once every 6-7 years.

If a coach isn't meeting those reasonable expectations, I will speak up and call for a new coach. Period.

what is regularly make Sweet 16 mean, in terms of frequency of years? Is it 2 every 4 years? 3 every 4 years? I ask, because reaching the sweet 16 depends, in part, on things like luck, match-ups, officiating, etc. Judging the merits of a coach on that seems a bit short sighted to me. Personally, I would base most of it on how well he does in conference (where law of averages tend to even out) and the remaining on the tourney.

Just to illustrate how hard it is to reach Sweet 16, lets look at Florida under Billy D. Wildly successful over his 19 year career. I know both you an I would take him in a heartbeat. Over the 19 years, he reached the Sweet 16 8 times....42% of the time. So more often than not, he failed to reach the Sweet 16. It's really hard to do.

 

[gkIrish]

what is regularly make Sweet 16 mean, in terms of frequency of years? Is it 2 every 4 years? 3 every 4 years? I ask, because reaching the sweet 16 depends, in part, on things like luck, match-ups, officiating, etc. Judging the merits of a coach on that seems a bit short sighted to me. Personally, I would base most of it on how well he does in conference (where law of averages tend to even out) and the remaining on the tourney.

Just to illustrate how hard it is to reach Sweet 16, lets look at Florida under Billy D. Wildly successful over his 19 year career. I know both you an I would take him in a heartbeat. Over the 19 years, he reached the Sweet 16 8 times....42% of the time. So more often than not, he failed to reach the Sweet 16. It's really hard to do.

2 out of every 5 years would be acceptable to me. 1 elite eight every 4-5 years.

1 in every 8 years for sweet 16 and 1 elite eight in 16 years is not acceptable to me.

 

[RDU Irish]

When you are talking the top 10 through 30 or 40 teams in CBB it is pretty much a coin flip on a neutral court. Outside of a one or two seed you are hardly guaranteed a victory in the first round and second round quickly approaches 50%. Expecting Sweet 16 even half the time is absurd for anyone outside of Kansas, Duke, UNC, MSU and Kentucky (probably a handful of others I am glossing over).

Brey has his flaws, it is frustrating he doesn't seem to work on them. That said, the program is in as good of shape as it has been for decades and the man earned the chance to see this out for at least a couple of sub 500 conference seasons and missed NCAAs as long as talent continues to be on the up and up.

Christ, you would think Matt Goetch was playing center for us instead of Zach August.

 

[gkIrish]

When you are talking the top 10 through 30 or 40 teams in CBB it is pretty much a coin flip on a neutral court. Outside of a one or two seed you are hardly guaranteed a victory in the first round and second round quickly approaches 50%. Expecting Sweet 16 even half the time is absurd for anyone outside of Kansas, Duke, UNC, MSU and Kentucky (probably a handful of others I am glossing over).

Brey has his flaws, it is frustrating he doesn't seem to work on them. That said, the program is in as good of shape as it has been for decades and the man earned the chance to see this out for at least a couple of sub 500 conference seasons and missed NCAAs as long as talent continues to be on the up and up.

Christ, you would think Matt Goetch was playing center for us instead of Zach August.

2 out of every 5 years would be acceptable to me. 1 elite eight every 4-5 years.

1 in every 8 years for sweet 16 and 1 elite eight in 16 years is not acceptable to me.

Do you think these expectations (40% Sweet 16, ~22% elite eight) are unreasonable?

Do you think 12.5% sweet 16 and 6.3% Elite Eight is "one of the best programs" as other posters have said? By the way Chris Mack at Xavier has been to the Sweet 16 50% of the time (granted he has not been to an Elite Eight yet).

 

[IrishLax]

Do you think these expectations (40% Sweet 16, ~22% elite eight) are unreasonable?

Do you think 12.5% sweet 16 and 6.3% Elite Eight is "one of the best programs" as other posters have said? By the way Chris Mack at Xavier has been to the Sweet 16 50% of the time (granted he has not been to an Elite Eight yet).

What are other comparables?

What kind of Sweet 16 % do Indiana, Ohio State, Michigan, Purdue, Butler, Illinois, etc. have over the same timeframe? What about old Big East and now ACC counterparts like Pitt, Syracuse, Louisville, etc?

 

[gkIrish]

What are other comparables?

What kind of Sweet 16 % do Indiana, Ohio State, Michigan, Purdue, Butler, Illinois, etc. have over the same timeframe? What about old Big East and now ACC counterparts like Pitt, Syracuse, Louisville, etc?

Keeping in mind that some of these schools have had multiple coaches since 2000-2001, here are the comparable percentages for sweet 16:

ND: Sweet 16--13.3% (The number I cited earlier was slightly lower because I divided by 16 seasons, not 15)

Ohio St.: 33.33%
--Also has been to a championship game, 3 elite eights, and 2 final fours in that time
- If you count only Matta's seasons it's 45.5%

Michigan: 13.3%,
-Under Beilein, it's 25%
-Went to the Natty and another elite 8

Indiana: 20%
-Under Tom Crean it's 33.3%
-Went to the Champ. game in 2002

Illinois: 26.6%
-Went to the National Championship in 2005 and another elite eight.

Purdue: 13.3%
-Have lost in the first round only once
-I would fire Matt Painter, too.

Butler: 26.6%
-Went to the national championship twice
-Has lost in the first round only once

Syracuse: 40%
-National Champion, an additional final 4, and an additional elite eight

Louisville: 46.6%
-National championship, 4 Elite Eight finishes, 2 Final Four finishes

Pittsburgh: 33.3%
-Note that I would fire Jaime Dixon, too.

My 40% number might be a tad high based on those comparisons but outside of Purdue and Pittsburgh (I would fire their coaches, too), all those teams have gone further in the tournament and have much better records under their current coach. I would say 33% would be a very reasonable number for sweet 16.

 

[woolybug25]

Why would you fire Matt Painter? That program was a shit show when he was hired and he immediately made them a consistent team in a very competitive conference. He's only won 64% of his games, won 20+ games 8 out of 11 seasons, Won the BIG tourney twice and currently has a 12th ranked team going into the tourney as a 5 seed.

That's a coach you should fire?

 

[FightingIrishLover7]

A general question for "coach firers"...

Do you guys consider a new coach an automatic improvement? For every Kelly over Weis, there's a Willingham over Bob Davie...

I'm in support of fixing the environment for the coaches, before changing the coach. (Ala, what Swarbrick has done for Kelly).

 

[AgentJ]

Keeping in mind that some of these schools have had multiple coaches since 2000-2001, here are the comparable percentages for sweet 16:

ND: Sweet 16--13.3% (The number I cited earlier was slightly lower because I divided by 16 seasons, not 15)

Ohio St.: 33.33%
--Also has been to a championship game, 3 elite eights, and 2 final fours in that time
- If you count only Matta's seasons it's 45.5%

Michigan: 13.3%,
-Under Beilein, it's 25%
-Went to the Natty and another elite 8

Indiana: 20%
-Under Tom Crean it's 33.3%
-Went to the Champ. game in 2002

Illinois: 26.6%
-Went to the National Championship in 2005 and another elite eight.

Purdue: 13.3%
-Have lost in the first round only once
-I would fire Matt Painter, too.

Butler: 26.6%
-Went to the national championship twice
-Has lost in the first round only once

Syracuse: 40%
-National Champion, an additional final 4, and an additional elite eight

Louisville: 46.6%
-National championship, 4 Elite Eight finishes, 2 Final Four finishes

Pittsburgh: 33.3%
-Note that I would fire Jaime Dixon, too.

My 40% number might be a tad high based on those comparisons but outside of Purdue and Pittsburgh (I would fire their coaches, too), all those teams have gone further in the tournament and have much better records under their current coach. I would say 33% would be a very reasonable number for sweet 16.

This is Notre Dame we are talking about. A school where you have to actually go to school. Most athletes in the above Universities wouldn't cut it or even consider ND because of that. Think about how difficult it is for the football team to recruit,then multiply that by poor facilities, poorish tradition, poor fan support, rigorous academics, staying 4-5 years for most, etc.

With the exception of Butler it is just not possible for ND to compete like that. Butler had Brad fucking Stevens to build their program, who is difficult to find. If you know a Brad Stevens to step into ND's job I'm all for it, but you don't.

Brey has done exceptionally well. ND is coming off of a conference championship and near final four. They were championship caliber last season and lost 2 NBA seniors.

 

[gkIrish]

Why would you fire Matt Painter? That program was a shit show when he was hired and he immediately made them a consistent team in a very competitive conference. He's only won 64% of his games, won 20+ games 8 out of 11 seasons, Won the BIG tourney twice and currently has a 12th ranked team going into the tourney as a 5 seed.

That's a coach you should fire?

Gene Keady had a rough 5 years but before that Purdue was consistenly good and successful in the tournament. Purdue has missed the tournament 3 of the last 5 years.

 

[gkIrish]

A general question for "coach firers"...

Do you guys consider a new coach an automatic improvement? For every Kelly over Weis, there's a Willingham over Bob Davie...

I'm in support of fixing the environment for the coaches, before changing the coach. (Ala, what Swarbrick has done for Kelly).

Of course not. I'm just not afraid to try something new when you know what you already have is not that great.

 

[FightingIrishLover7]

Of course not. I'm just not afraid to try something new when you know what you already have is not that great.

So, you're willing to gamble that the next guy will be, "better"?

When you have a "solid" program like ND, I think it makes much more sense to invest in environmental factors, before scrapping the whole program.

People want Brey to "step it up a level", so they're admitting he's done alright. Why throw away "alright", before you even try to help him improve?

Notre Dame needs to do much more to help with facilities and fan support, both of which will allow Brey to recruit better talent.

 

[Irish Insanity]

I get wanting to support a coach and providing an environment for him, and the players, to succeed. But what's the time frame on that? It's not like Brey has only been here a handful of years. We need to do something to light a fire under his ass.

 

[Ndaccountant]

Of course not. I'm just not afraid to try something new when you know what you already have is not that great.

Why is the tourney your only barometer? Why not conference specific goals? Again, as illustrated by even your own numbers, reaching the sweet 16 for anyone other than the traditional powers is hard. In the last 10 years, only 6 schools have reached the Sweet 16 at a clip greater than 50%. They are:

6 births - Florida, Duke, Kansas UNC, UofL
7 births - MSU

There have been 6 teams that have had 5.......OSU, UCLA, Xavier, Wisky Kentucky & Arizona.

So in the last 10 years, only 12 teams have met a really high standard. Compare that to football, where in the last ten years, only Florida, OSU, Bama, ND, Auburn, FSU, Oregon, Texas, LSU, OU & Clemson have made the national championship game. So 11 teams in 10 years. Asking ND basketball to replicate what the blue bloods produce would be like saying it's NC game or bust for Michigan football. Simply put, that is asking too much when you are historically a good, but not elite program. It takes either getting really lucky with coaches (see Xavier with Matta, Miller and Mack and Wisky with Ryan and Bennett), having a string of really good luck, program changing funding, tradition or some combination of these. I don't like the odds and would rather try the funding hand before canning Brey.

 

[woolybug25]

Gene Keady had a rough 5 years but before that Purdue was consistenly good and successful in the tournament. Purdue has missed the tournament 3 of the last 5 years.

But they have made it the last two years and are quite good right now.

Why now?

Let's not act like this is Indiana or North Carolina. He had two rough seasons a few years ago, but historically, they are a solid tournament team under him. Just seems like a strange time to call for a coaches head when they are currently a pretty good team. Nobody gets fired when they are one the best teams in their conference because they had a rough season three years ago.

 

[Ultimate Penn St. Hater]

I like our spot in the bracket. Have a shot at Elite 8. Go Irish!

 

[Irish Insanity]

There is no reason to lose games we shouldn't. We lost 4 games to teams who didn't make the bracket. Is that acceptable in year 16 of building a program? I'm not on the fire Brey wagon, yet. But c'mon now

 

[FightingIrishLover7]

I get wanting to support a coach and providing an environment for him, and the players, to succeed. But what's the time frame on that? It's not like Brey has only been here a handful of years. We need to do something to light a fire under his ass.

It's a fire under the ass of Swarbrick that needs to be lit... This is my entire point, the administration is the one who is settling, not Brey.

Funds need to be allocated to Brey, big time.

 

[NDgradstudent]

I get wanting to support a coach and providing an environment for him, and the players, to succeed. But what's the time frame on that? It's not like Brey has only been here a handful of years. We need to do something to light a fire under his ass.

Practice facility
Practice facility
Practice facility
Practice facility
Practice facility

 

[Blaise]

How far does everyone have ND going? Sadly, I got them getting bounced by WV in the second round