Notre Dame Basketball: 8 early candidates to replace head coach Mike Brey

Chris Quinn

The final name on our list is the one with barely any collegiate coaching experience. There’s certainly been a trend in recent years of these NBA coaches or players getting their shot to run collegiate programs. Sometimes it works like with Mike Woodson or Juwan Howard, and sometimes it falls short (too many examples to name just a few).

Quinn was a point guard at Notre Dame in the early 2000’s under Brey. He spent parts of six seasons in the NBA after going undrafted and has been an assistant with the Miami Heat since 2014. Prior to that, he spent a single season as the director of player development at Northwestern, though he’s never been a full-time collegiate coach. He’s been effective with the Heat and has also served as acting head coach on a couple occasions in recent years.

Obviously, we’re talking about an NBA assistant with no real collegiate experience taking over an ACC program. Look at how disastrous Patrick Ewing has been at Georgetown, and he was a much bigger star with even more NBA coaching experience. Still, Quinn’s near decade of coaching in the NBA makes him an appealing candidate and someone with ties to the university itself. It’s not likely that Quinn is the answer, but he’s definitely worth mentioning in any initial searches.

We’ve taken a closer look at eight candidates for the Notre Dame job; who do you think is the right fit to be the next coach of the Fighting Irish?