Q&A: Former Notre Dame men's basketball coach Mike Brey touches on past, present and future

CHICAGO — Too much ground to cover, too little time to cover it. 

There aren’t enough hours in a day, a week, a month or even a year to drill down with Mike Brey on his 23 seasons (2000-23) as head coach of Notre Dame men’s basketball. Where do you start? With each question, the conversation sprays in several directions. 

“It was the honor of a lifetime to be the coach at Notre Dame,” Brey told the Tribune this week. “It was a great run.” 

Exclusive:Former Notre Dame men's basketball coach Mike Brey embraces his new NBA life

Notre Dame was a place he came to consider home, but a place he hasn’t been back to since enjoying one last cigar on campus in early May. He then packed his Buick Enclave and headed for the next coaching chapter as an assistant with the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks. Brey returned to the Midwest during Christmas week when he met with Tribune columnist and Notre Dame men’s basketball beat writer Tom Noie in advance of Atlanta’s game in Chicago. 

Noie:How did it go so wrong for Mike Brey and Notre Dame men's basketball this season?

Following is a transcript of their 40-minute conversation, edited for clarity, length and, if you know Brey, language:

Q: How long did it take to come to grips with the Dumpster fire that last season became for you and for the Notre Dame program? 

A: I don't think I'll ever get over it. I think that will always be there, the way we finished it. Like, hey, man, you're proud of your body of work (but) you're disappointed that you couldn't end it on a better note. We had a great run, which makes the ending so difficult. Not only last year, but three of the last five years. 

Q: When did you know that leaving had to happen? 

A: I really knew after (the November non-conference game against) St. Bonaventure. We were in the Long Island Marriott alone for Thanksgiving and I was like, this kind of sucks. Even before we played, I knew it was going to be bad. We had a bad matchup. Old guys. Tough guys. It sucked. You're walking to the locker room (after a lethargic 63-51 loss) and you have to give a speech. I'm just like, I'm tired of this routine, tired of all this. I walk in the locker room and I'm like, yeah, this will be it. It was over. 

Q: Can any head coach leave the way he wants? Leave with no regrets? 

A: I look back at Al McGuire who dropped the mic after he won (the 1977 national championship at Marquette). It's hard to hit that walk-off home run in my profession. I was not going to let it get to the point where they were really, really tired of me. Yeah, they got tired of me, but you know what? You get tired of them, too. It was 23 years. I was a loyal soldier. I didn’t even get the job the first time around and then they really needed me. 

Q: What part of you thought after those consecutive Elite Eights in 2015 and 2016 that that was going to be as good as it gets at Notre Dame? 

A: A part of me thought that (but) I'll tell you where the karma changed, and I go back to it all the time. We've got to be the only team in history to win the Maui Invitational and not get (an NCAA tournament) bid. I mean, not only were we coming off the ‘15-’16 run, which was magical, we roll into the 2017-18 season and win Maui in dramatic fashion. We're rolling up to Michigan State, the No. 5 team in the country, get our (butts) whooped and (Bonzie Colson's) foot starts bothering him. Remember? 

We managed that. He's out, but we're hanging around. When Matt Farrell hit 10 3s at Boston College, I said, ‘If you squint hard, you can see the (tournament) bubble.’ Everyone is like get the (heck) out of here. All of a sudden, it was like, this is going to happen. When we were the first team out, the entire karma of the program changed. 

Q: What was that (2017) Selection Sunday like for you? 

A: You know where I was parked? At the Grotto. I listened to Selection Sunday on the radio. I wasn't going to bring the team together because I knew it was going to be close. I drove to the Grotto to light a candle. I was pulling all the stops out for us to get a bid. People had us out; people had us in. I'm like (heck), we might do this. 

I got caught up in it like, Jesus, we're getting in. People are like, are you going to watch the selection show? I was like, no way. So, I have it on my radio and I'm parked at the Grotto trying to stir the karma in our favor. That was the year they announced bids alphabetically and they go right by us. 

Q: That was the call-the-beat-reporter that night and hammer studio host Ernie Johnson, who seemingly mocked Notre Dame not getting in, remember? 

A: When Ernie Johnson pulled that, I wanted to punch him in the face. Then I did TV with him and he's calling me to apologize and I'm like, relax, man, we're good. That was the running joke - ‘Mike was going to punch me out.’ I'm like, no, no. I was just frustrated. When we didn't get in that year, I really felt like, damn it, the karma's different. We really needed that one. That bought you a little more time. 

Q: What kept you at Notre Dame for 23 years? 

A: What it comes down to is this — I have 78 guys who came through there and played for me in 23 years. That's 78 sons. They're all in different phases of their lives, and not a week goes by that two of them aren't in a crisis. They still reach out to Coach. That's what it's all about. 

The kind of guys we got, the kind of kids I coached, that's why I stayed. Always. Oh, it was so good. I was always honored, always will be and still to this day, when I walk through NBA arenas, fans are yelling Go Irish! You're still kind of the Notre Dame coach. I'm very proud of that. 

Q: There might not have been five coaches in the country who could’ve finessed everything you had to finesse — arena renovation, practice facility issues, football’s importance, two different leagues, two athletic directors — and still won how you won at Notre Dame. How? 

A: (Shoot), I had great support. But you know what? I was low maintenance, and I was a bargain. Our program was a bargain financially to the university. I never negotiated any deals. They gave me extensions and said here's the number and I'm like, good, let's go. I've got to go recruit. 

We got there and the facilities needed work, but I was like, if I'm going to sit around and (whine) about our facilities, I've got my hands full as it was with Jim Calhoun and Jim Boeheim and all these Big East (legends). Like, we'll figure it out. We'll make it work. We did. 

Q: How close were you to taking the South Florida job last March? 

A: South Florida was interesting because of the location, but I couldn't get there. It was never a done deal. It never got that far. You were trying to warm up to it. I went down there on my own dime. I did TV up in New York and flew down. I'm going, let's see, I’ll take this job and my grandsons can be ballboys. If I get fired in two years, heck, I’m still living in Tampa. Then I'm like, (screw) it. You can't look at it like that. 

Q: So, no Notre Dame contractual roadblock prohibited you from taking another head coaching job? 

A: There was never a contract issue with me leaving Notre Dame. My stuff with Notre Dame, to Jack Swarbrick’s credit, he kept me on salary for another two months, which was great. I had no buyout either way. There was no buyout. I had been there long enough where there were no contractual obligations. Look, the money we all made in college athletics, we were stealing. I was open to being a head coach (but) do you just jump back into it? 

Q: On the heels of USF going a different direction, how did you wind up with the Atlanta Hawks? 

A: It was a Monday (in April) and (new Hawks coach) Quin Snyder texted me. Danny Ferry was kind of the middleman in that. He was Quin's roommate in college. He said, don't do anything (with USF) because I think you and Quin would be good together. I talked to Quin. I went down and watched a couple Hawks practices. I was hanging around a little bit. 

People saw me there and they're like, oh, he's taking a job with the Hawks. Quin goes hey, full transparency, come down here and work with me. I was thinking, dang, you've been a high school coach, you've been a college coach, at least check the box to say that you coached in the NBA. You've got to do it. 

Q: How do go from being THE guy of a program to being one of the guys? 

A: I’m good with it. I kind of like this. I do a lot of listening. I told Q the other day, I said, Q, I was an assistant coach for two Hall of Famers — Morgan Wootten and Mike Krzyzewski. I said, I know how to do this. Big picture, at the end of the day, it's basketball. It always comes back to trying to get a group to play together, not have any (BS) and play the right way, keep guys' heads right. I'm in a position to be part psychologist because I've seen it all. I’m committed to the Hawks and helping Quin build this. 

Q: Sitting one row behind the bench during games ... different? 

A: I like it. There’s no spotlight. I'm good. I really enjoy being kind of behind the scenes. Quin said in the spring, come down here and be my sage. I said, you know what, that's a good role for me.

I coached Q. I got through things with him when he was a junior guard at Duke and Mike K was yelling at him and I would pull him aside and say, hey, hang in there. He remembers. It's been interesting to be with him and helping a young staff. Maybe not so much helping them in the NBA because they have NBA experience and I don't, but career experience. 

Q: Do you see the irony of saying that you knew it was over at Notre Dame because last Thanksgiving, you were sitting alone in the Long Island Marriott? This Christmas, you were sitting alone in The Peninsula Hotel in Chicago. 

A: It's different because it's all so new. It is the NBA. It is the ultimate in basketball. For a guy who started as a high school junior varsity coach, to be able to work in this league and feel it, maybe it was like your destiny. You've been through all the levels, man. You've touched them all. The routine of college basketball, it was time for a change. 

Q: You'll visit 10 NBA arenas this season that you coached in at Notre Dame. What kind of memories rekindle when you go through Rocket Mortage Arena in Cleveland, site of the end of that magical 2015 run? 

A: I've been there twice. Unbelievable memories in there. Again, because I'm a second-row guy, a guy taps me on the shoulder, he’s got a beer in his hand. Game's going on, he ain't even paying attention. Security jumps on people if they touch you and I was like, he's all right. Relax, man. He leans forward and says, ‘I was here for that Kentucky game. That was (freaking) unbelievable.’ I said, probably never been louder in here. He goes, ‘No, no, I'm from Cleveland. Unbelievable.’ 

Q: How do you sleep after games as an assistant coach as opposed to when you were a head coach? 

A: I'm better. You're better at letting it go as an assistant coach, even though your sleep patterns are all over the map. Tonight. I'll get to my house at 2 a.m. We don't sleep on the plane because you're breaking film down, you're talking. You get home, get some sleep and then get back to the facility mid-morning. 

Q: Television somewhere in your future? 

A: I wouldn't close the door on that. Maybe you do that down the road, doing FOX Big East games. I was thinking of that because if I was living in Washington, I could catch the train up and down the coast to all the Big East cities. I'm more of a Big East guy than an ACC guy. 

Q: Can you see yourself again being a college head coach? 

A: I'm going to be 65 in (March). My agent called me a month ago and said that people are going to start asking about you coming back to college. I really don't want to do it. I just don't feel it. Never say never, but that was another life. I have no desire to go back and be the head guy again, be the voice. That's not moving me right now. 

Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on X (formerly Twitter): @tnoieNDI. Contact: (574) 235-6153.