8. Big East Basketball power rankings – Mike Brey (Notre Dame, 2000-2013)
The longtime independent football power didn’t join the Big East until 1995, but Notre Dame wasn’t seeing success at the basketball level until Brey’s hiring in 2000. The former Duke assistant had spent five years honing his craft as the head coach at Delaware and was definitely ready for the challenge of a power-conference program.
In the thirteen years before Notre Dame left the Big East, Brey made this team a consistent power in the conference. The Fighting Irish made nine NCAA Tournaments in this span, though 2003’s team was the only one to make a second-weekend trip. There’s nothing wrong with a 136-84 mark in Big East play and these Fighting Irish were a consistent success in the country’s deepest and strongest conference.
In this article, we can’t give Brey credit for Notre Dame’s back-to-back Elite Eight runs, as they came a few years later in the ACC. That being said, the lack of postseason advancement in the Big East years is a major reason why he isn’t higher on this list. Regardless, he arrived in South Bend and turned around a Notre Dame program that had been dormant for well over a decade. He put them in a solid position in the ACC, remains at the school today, and should continue to do so as he enters his third decade with the Fighting Irish.