I think time will tell if Brey can recruit or not. He has no more excuses on that front and this run of success needs to translate to raising the floor of the talent. All signs point to success on this front however I worry about him settling for less and exuding an inferiority complex that doesn't even compete for better talent and settles for easier layups.
I'm not worried about this. He showed a good balance between "shoot for the stars" and "push for higher level guys that should be in our range" the last two classes. The biggest indicator is how Thon Maker's recruitment evolved as it became more and more clear that he was fine with academically-challenging institutions, despite being a likely one-and-done guy.
Once everyone realized that Maker wasn't deterred by challenging academics, ND amped it up and had a legit shot... but then he went straight to the league, so it didn't matter in the end. But what DID matter is that Brey/ND did enough to convince a future superstar that making at ND as a one-and-done is possible.
I think the realistic scenarios for ND grabbing a one-and-done will be few and far between, for myriad reasons, but the simple possibility now existing is a good sign for ND recruiting in general.
I don't totally disagree with you but I believe he still has one legit excuse in his pocket. Swarbrick needs to open the pocket book and improve the training facilities. There is absolutely no reason why the two basketball teams have to share a practice facility. I mean, they practice in a freaking basement lol.
If Brian Kelly can get rewarded with an $800 million stadium facelift for going 4-8, then McGraw should get rewarded for multiple Final Four appearances and Brey should get rewarded for back-to-back Elite Eights. Give each team there own practice floor and facility. It is unacceptable that Brey and McGraw have to negotiate on who gets the practice floor. Thats high school stuff
Yeah, it would be nice to hear if something is in the works in that regard. Continued, sustained success should be rewarded... and Brey's program is running at full boar right now, and McGraw's has been for a while.
If not now, when?
He's 57, been ND head coach for 16 years, does he need another decade, or two, to learn how it's done?
I think he needed/needs time to adjust to the current sustained success, and to learn how to parlay that into a balance of going after superstars, and pushing for high-level, ND-type of guys.
Recruiting to ND basketball isn't going to change *much*, regardless of the success of the program, but it's changing just enough that Brey should be in the conversation for some of the high-level guys that a school like Duke is after.
I think he knows how to do it, but top players don't (or haven't) wanted to come to a marginally relevant program with no facilities.
Sustain success long enough, and the players are going to realize that facilities or no, something is happening that they're going to want to join.
But I'd imagine there will be a small but noticeable uptick in recruiting if Brey is able to start saying, "look what we've done with closet-like facilities... now imagine what we can do if you join our program and take advantage of the state-of-the art facilities we've got planned!"
