ACC Basketball: 10 questions looming for the 2021-22 season

3. Is the seat heating up for Mike Brey?

Things haven’t gone quite according to plan for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and head coach Mike Brey of late. The Fighting Irish finished with an overall record of 11-15 and 7-11 in the conference, good for 11th in the standings, in 2020-21 while losing five of their final seven contests, including a 101-59 loss to the North Carolina Tar Heels.

The Fighting Irish have finished with a losing record in two of the last three seasons under Brey with a compiled record of 45-46. Is the seat heating up for him entering the 2021-22 campaign?

It’s no knock on the resume that Brey has built since being the head coach at Notre Dame since 2000. He does have 12 NCAA Tournament appearances under his belt while leading the way for the Fighting Irish, but his last NCAA Tournament appearance came in 2017.

This past season, the Fighting Irish ranked 129th in the nation in scoring offense (72.7) and 277th in scoring defense, allowing 74.3 points per contest.

They’ll return everybody from a year outside of senior Juwan Durham and add Yale grad-transfer Paul Atkinson. He posted 17.6 points, 7.3 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 1.2 steals per game in 2019-20 in his last appearance on the hardwood.

With two other freshmen coming in, the Fighting Irish will need to show their experience or else it could be the last time Brey roams the sidelines.