MENS BASKETBALL: COACHES
By KATHLEEN O'BRIEN
Associate Sports Editor
NEW YORK
Notre Dame men's basketball, a powerhouse in the 1970s and 1980s, is wiping the sleep from its eyes after a dormant decade in which it never advanced to the NCAA Tournament.
While Matt Doherty often receives credit for waking up the echoes and first-year Irish coach Mike Brey earns props for getting the job done this year, an often overlooked key to the resurgence is John MacLeod, who coached the Irish through the lean years.
All three men, along with the current players, deserve to share recognition for the programÕs resurgence.
This year's Irish squad (19-7, 11-5 Big East) is poised to return to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1990. It won the Big East West Division title, Notre Dame's first league championship in menâs basketball since joining the Conference in 1995. The Irish begin Big East Tournament play today, but already have a bid to March Madness virtually wrapped up, with the field of 64 to be announced Sunday.
"We've solidly put ourselves into a very good seed in both of these tournaments coming in," Brey said earlier this week. "We're excited about playing for a championship in New York."
For the first time, Notre Dame seems a viable candidate to win the league championship. It finished three games above .500 in league play, where Notre Dame had never posted a winning record.
As the third coach in three years, Brey did a masterful job of winning over the current players and playing to their strengths.
He avoided the letdown teams often face following a change at the helm by keeping his team confident.
Captains Troy Murphy and Martin Ingelsby, along with the other core players for Notre Dame in David Graves, Harold Swanagan, Ryan Humphrey and Matt Carroll, stayed on task. They wanted to end Notre Dame's postseason drought. The NCAA Tournament was their goal, whether Doherty, Brey or their grandma was in charge, and they're about to pull of that feat.
But Notre Dame's trip back to the top 25 didn't start when Brey was hired. It began several years ago beneath MacLeod's guidance.
MacLeod, pushed to resign following a 14-16 season in 1998-99, brought in five of the six players logging major minutes for Notre Dame this season, with Oklahoma transfer Humphrey the exception.
"I think Coach MacLeod is the guy who was forgotten in all of this," said Murphy, a MacLeod recruit who's exceeded everyone's expectations and then some as an All-American and two-time Big East Player of the Year. "Of the six guys who play a lot, five of them were recruited by Coach MacLeod and came here to play for Coach MacLeod."
MacLeod faced an uphill battle in winning over top recruits during his early tenure at Notre Dame when the 1990s began. At that point, Notre Dame was one of just three independent Division I men's basketball programs (along with Sacramento State and Oral Roberts). All the other schools belonged to a conference, making it easier to schedule games, gain television exposure, and pick up blue chip players.
"I could see recruiting wise, that we were never going to be able to recruit as independents," MacLeod said this week.
MacLeod pushed for Notre Dame's entrance into a conference throughout his time at Notre Dame, and the University finally relented in 1995. Until that time, even getting into the living rooms of top high school prospects
was a daunting task.
"Basketball players didn't want to go to a school that was not affiliated with a conference," MacLeod said. "You want to go to a Big Ten school, an ACC school or a Big East school. We were just banging our heads against a brick wall."
Even before Notre Dame joined the Big East, MacLeod got one lucky break when Pat Garrity signed to play for the Irish. Garrity, a 1998 graduate who earned All-American honors and played his way into the NBA, helped recruiting by getting Notre Dame basketball in the headlines.
With Garrity on board and Notre Dame now a member of the Big East, MacLeod was able to convince the current crop of Irish players to sign on.
He brought in Ingelsby, the Pennsylvania player of the year in 1996-97, in part because of Notre Dame's trips back to the East Coast to play.
"I get to play back home on the East Coast and play against top competition in the country," Ingelsby said. "I took that as a challenge to go out and prove that I could play here and play at this level."
A year later, MacLeod brought in Murphy from New Jersey and Kentucky All-State players Graves and Swanagan.
"I put I can't tell you how many long, hard days into rebuilding that program," MacLeod said. "My projection, when we put all those kids together, was by the time they were sophomores, we'd be in the top 50. By the time they got to be juniors, we'd be in the top 25. We'd have three NCAA teams with them."
In his final recruiting class, he picked up two-time Pennsylvania state player of the year Matt Carroll and Ohio's Mike Monserez, who transferred to Butler this year.
But MacLeod didn't get the chance to stay and see if his prediction would come true. In March 1999, he announced his resignation, with Doherty coming in as his replacement.
Doherty worked quickly to get things done, from reviving the crowds that had lapsed during Notre Dame's years watching the Tournament on TV to renovating the locker room. Enthused by his passion for Notre Dame basketball, fans jumped on the bandwagon and bought tickets to Joyce Center games en masse.
The former Kansas assistant coach fell short of goal No. 1 Ñ taking the Irish back to March Madness. But he came close, with Notre Dame advancing to the finals of the NIT and finishing with a 22-15 record.
More importantly, he made inroads into the future by helping stock the Notre Dame roster with transfers like Humphrey and top-recruits like Chris Thomas. He also played a role in convincing Murphy to stay.
Just as quickly as he came in, Doherty was gone, though, leaving to become the head coach at his alma mater North Carolina in July. Athletic director Kevin White replaced Doherty with former Duke assistant coach and Delaware head coach Brey. Behind Brey, Notre Dame's clearing the next
hurdle Ñ getting back into the NCAA Tournament.
"He's the guy who got us back into the NCAA Tournament," Brey said of Murphy. "He's the guy who put us back on the college basketball radar screen"
Back in the top 25 and in a powerhouse conference, it's also an appealing choice for top high school players once more.
"I think it's a wise choice for a lot of the blue chip top-25 players to look at Notre Dame," Murphy said.
Who's responsible for bringing Notre Dame basketball back to the top? That's too much acclaim to give to any one person, but it doesn't matter. As the Irish prepare for their first NCAA Tournament run since 1990, they're climbing back up the college basketball ladder.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Sports Stories for Monday, March 19, 2001
