Here's everything Notre Dame men's basketball head coach Mike Brey told reporters before Saturday's first official practice for the Irish. My quick takeaways from practice are here.
Questions are paraphrased. Quotes aren't.
Brey's introductory statement:
“I think you’ve heard me at this point before where you had 12 workouts together in the summer with these new rules. We probably had six through September. Even though it’s practice one officially, I’m not sure it’s practice one anymore.
“In the old days, it was October 15. You couldn’t work with them in the summer. You couldn’t do anything with them. And that really was the first practice, thus the old Midnight Madness stuff and all of those things. But now, your freshmen by the first practice, like today, our three freshmen, they’ve been through a lot of our stuff already.
“So anyways, now you get faced into, ‘How do we pace them?’ Because I certainly have an older group. How do you pace them through?
“We’ll bring the refs in a week from today. I want to bring them in quick and bring them in a couple times, so we scrimmage with the officials. We have the DePaul thing the 23rd, which I think is good to play against some Power 5 bodies. We’ll go over there and play them on the afternoon of the 23rd. Then you get into November.
“Dom (Campbell)’s the only one not here today — a little bit of flu symptoms. He’s the only one not available. You’ll see (Robby) Carmody is moving and going through shooting stuff, playing a little one-on-one with (development and recruiting program coordinator) Ryan Greer. Does he eventually get into some five-on-five? Maybe he does. But I don’t think there’s any crazy pressure. It’s just nice to have him back involved in some of the stuff.
“We have some old guys. When you have 12 scholarship players, six are in graduate school. Six guys getting master’s degrees. Five of the guys in the rotation are fifth-year guys. They certainly know how to play. You guys have heard me say, it’s a group that learned how to win last year, that older nucleus. It’s a pretty focused group.
“Here we go with the day-to-day stuff now. We’ll go today, Sunday, Monday and then Tuesday will be our off day. We’ll try to get into a rhythm. Big thing is pacing them physically, especially those older guys. Those guys have played a lot of basketball.
“They’re always working on their game. They’re always in here at night. They did a lot through the summer, even when they weren’t with us. They’re somewhere getting shots. (Nate) Laszewski, (Dane) Goodwin, (Cormac) Ryan — their wheels are on my mind, because we’re going to ask a lot of them as we really get into it in November.”
The starting point last year was getting back to the NCAA Tournament. Where do you start with this group?
“They feel they can advance. You can sit there and talk about advancing in the NCAA Tournament, but when you haven’t tasted it, when the kids haven’t tasted it, that’s kind of a pipe dream. They really tasted what it was like to advance and the excitement of it. I hope they’re really kind of addicted to it. To play deep in that thing, to stay alive second weekend and dream big dreams.
“When I got here a long time ago, we’ve only been to one Final Four. It’s always kind of driven me. It would be neat to get us back to that spot. I’m really driven to try and do that. You have a group that has tasted what this thing is all about. It’s been exciting.
“Every couple of weeks, I take the Big Three out. We go and it’s more me listening than talking, because those guys have seen it all — Ryan, Laszewski and Goodwin. They’re going to set the tone and run things for us.”
When we saw you in July, there was a core seven. Is it still those core seven guys?
“You know what’s been really interesting to watch? J.R. (Konieczny). Now that he’s healthy, he has been really good through September. The trip to Europe helped. It gave him some confidence. It got him out there. What does he battle in there and do?
“(Matt) Zona and Tony (Sanders Jr.) are just so solid, and they’ve been in our program for so long. The other day, we went Wednesday. We had 17 assists and only three turnovers. I’m looking and going, ‘God.’ And everyone was involved.
“Of course then I say, ‘We have too many players.’ Then it’s roster management. You can sit there and talk about the 10th and 11th man until the cows come home, but the 10th and 11th man are the 10th and 11th man, even if they’re playing well.
“Those seven have really established themselves. How do we keep that nucleus healthy? Then who adds to that? Who comes in and adds to that?
“You guys have heard me say this. Through October, everybody’s playing. It’s when you sit on that bench at DePaul on Oct. 23, and they see the first substitution pattern, and they go, ‘Oh. Oh. Oh.’ That’s when my work begins. On the bus ride back on the 23rd will be when my work begins on the management of everything. That’s all part of it.
“No question, they can talk about playing deep in the tournament, because they felt advancing in the tournament. It’s cool to be around. I've been around it a couple times. It’s been really neat to see it.”
Get old, stay old has been the philosophy for so long. Does it hit you any different when you may have a core seven that’s older than some NBA starting lineup?
“This is really a record. We have lived on the older thing. As a rule of thumb, because of the COVID year and because of NIL, kids are staying. College basketball’s really old. You almost better be old now.
“Old was a little bit of an advantage, and maybe we were a little ahead of the game in my early years. We were built with four- and five-year guys. You could get a good rhythm to things. But now, look at Carolina’s roster. Look at Virginia. Look at how people have recovered after losing good players. But for us, I don’t think we’ve ever had this old of a rotation of this many guys.
“You know what’s crazy? Goodwin and Laszewski, we’re sitting there talking the other day. Those guys, five years. They’ve gotten that fifth year. It’s a dagger to be young.
“This is really interesting with them in graduate school. We were trying to figure out when we could practice. Graduate school is so demanding. I’m like, ‘God, do we have to go at 7 in the morning? Do we have to come at 7 at night?’ Luckily, we’ve been able to carve out two hours, 4-6, Monday through Thursday. Because their courses and their meetings, and it’s all really cool stuff, but we’ve never had that many graduate guys.”
(more)
Questions are paraphrased. Quotes aren't.
Brey's introductory statement:
“I think you’ve heard me at this point before where you had 12 workouts together in the summer with these new rules. We probably had six through September. Even though it’s practice one officially, I’m not sure it’s practice one anymore.
“In the old days, it was October 15. You couldn’t work with them in the summer. You couldn’t do anything with them. And that really was the first practice, thus the old Midnight Madness stuff and all of those things. But now, your freshmen by the first practice, like today, our three freshmen, they’ve been through a lot of our stuff already.
“So anyways, now you get faced into, ‘How do we pace them?’ Because I certainly have an older group. How do you pace them through?
“We’ll bring the refs in a week from today. I want to bring them in quick and bring them in a couple times, so we scrimmage with the officials. We have the DePaul thing the 23rd, which I think is good to play against some Power 5 bodies. We’ll go over there and play them on the afternoon of the 23rd. Then you get into November.
“Dom (Campbell)’s the only one not here today — a little bit of flu symptoms. He’s the only one not available. You’ll see (Robby) Carmody is moving and going through shooting stuff, playing a little one-on-one with (development and recruiting program coordinator) Ryan Greer. Does he eventually get into some five-on-five? Maybe he does. But I don’t think there’s any crazy pressure. It’s just nice to have him back involved in some of the stuff.
“We have some old guys. When you have 12 scholarship players, six are in graduate school. Six guys getting master’s degrees. Five of the guys in the rotation are fifth-year guys. They certainly know how to play. You guys have heard me say, it’s a group that learned how to win last year, that older nucleus. It’s a pretty focused group.
“Here we go with the day-to-day stuff now. We’ll go today, Sunday, Monday and then Tuesday will be our off day. We’ll try to get into a rhythm. Big thing is pacing them physically, especially those older guys. Those guys have played a lot of basketball.
“They’re always working on their game. They’re always in here at night. They did a lot through the summer, even when they weren’t with us. They’re somewhere getting shots. (Nate) Laszewski, (Dane) Goodwin, (Cormac) Ryan — their wheels are on my mind, because we’re going to ask a lot of them as we really get into it in November.”
The starting point last year was getting back to the NCAA Tournament. Where do you start with this group?
“They feel they can advance. You can sit there and talk about advancing in the NCAA Tournament, but when you haven’t tasted it, when the kids haven’t tasted it, that’s kind of a pipe dream. They really tasted what it was like to advance and the excitement of it. I hope they’re really kind of addicted to it. To play deep in that thing, to stay alive second weekend and dream big dreams.
“When I got here a long time ago, we’ve only been to one Final Four. It’s always kind of driven me. It would be neat to get us back to that spot. I’m really driven to try and do that. You have a group that has tasted what this thing is all about. It’s been exciting.
“Every couple of weeks, I take the Big Three out. We go and it’s more me listening than talking, because those guys have seen it all — Ryan, Laszewski and Goodwin. They’re going to set the tone and run things for us.”
When we saw you in July, there was a core seven. Is it still those core seven guys?
“You know what’s been really interesting to watch? J.R. (Konieczny). Now that he’s healthy, he has been really good through September. The trip to Europe helped. It gave him some confidence. It got him out there. What does he battle in there and do?
“(Matt) Zona and Tony (Sanders Jr.) are just so solid, and they’ve been in our program for so long. The other day, we went Wednesday. We had 17 assists and only three turnovers. I’m looking and going, ‘God.’ And everyone was involved.
“Of course then I say, ‘We have too many players.’ Then it’s roster management. You can sit there and talk about the 10th and 11th man until the cows come home, but the 10th and 11th man are the 10th and 11th man, even if they’re playing well.
“Those seven have really established themselves. How do we keep that nucleus healthy? Then who adds to that? Who comes in and adds to that?
“You guys have heard me say this. Through October, everybody’s playing. It’s when you sit on that bench at DePaul on Oct. 23, and they see the first substitution pattern, and they go, ‘Oh. Oh. Oh.’ That’s when my work begins. On the bus ride back on the 23rd will be when my work begins on the management of everything. That’s all part of it.
“No question, they can talk about playing deep in the tournament, because they felt advancing in the tournament. It’s cool to be around. I've been around it a couple times. It’s been really neat to see it.”
Get old, stay old has been the philosophy for so long. Does it hit you any different when you may have a core seven that’s older than some NBA starting lineup?
“This is really a record. We have lived on the older thing. As a rule of thumb, because of the COVID year and because of NIL, kids are staying. College basketball’s really old. You almost better be old now.
“Old was a little bit of an advantage, and maybe we were a little ahead of the game in my early years. We were built with four- and five-year guys. You could get a good rhythm to things. But now, look at Carolina’s roster. Look at Virginia. Look at how people have recovered after losing good players. But for us, I don’t think we’ve ever had this old of a rotation of this many guys.
“You know what’s crazy? Goodwin and Laszewski, we’re sitting there talking the other day. Those guys, five years. They’ve gotten that fifth year. It’s a dagger to be young.
“This is really interesting with them in graduate school. We were trying to figure out when we could practice. Graduate school is so demanding. I’m like, ‘God, do we have to go at 7 in the morning? Do we have to come at 7 at night?’ Luckily, we’ve been able to carve out two hours, 4-6, Monday through Thursday. Because their courses and their meetings, and it’s all really cool stuff, but we’ve never had that many graduate guys.”
(more)
