Irish Dance to Brey's New Tune

It's amazing how quickly the tables can turn. Rewind to Wednesday February 17th, 2010. The men's Fighting Irish basketball team is slowly walking off the court at Freedom Hall, just having suffered a heartbreaking double-overtime loss to Louisville in a game which likely ended the season for ND. This loss meant the Irish were 3-7 in their last 10 games. To make matters worse, one of the nation's premier scorers, ND's "golden boy" of the hard court Luke Harangody, was out with a knee injury. Needless to say, the ship was sinking fast.

Experts and fans had all but written the Irish off as a non-factor with March Madness quickly approaching. That was before Irish Coach Mike Brey changed the course of the season dramatically. In possibly the greatest coaching move of his career thus far, Coach Brey completely revamped the play-style of his team 3/4's of the way through the season. With the uncertain future of 'Gody, Brey needed to make some drastic changes to salvage their season... fast.  No longer was Harangody the centerpiece to this offense, which meant Brey needed to find some "diamonds in the rough".  To help this process along, Brey opted to sloooooow the game down on offense and focus of fundamental defense.  This would hopefully allow the new role players to adjust easily.  But could this really work?  Was it too little too late?
 

With the Fighting Irish earning a 6 seed in the big dance, the effectiveness of Brey's strategy change is evident.  It worked.  Not only did it get the Irish into the tourney, it sparked a 6 game tear through a difficult season-ending stretch.  The Irish fought themselves to the Big East tournament semifinals, losing by just 2 points to WVU.

 
Heading into "Selection Sunday" most expected the Irish to be seeded as a 9, maybe an 8.  The Selection Committee made it clear that a special emphasis would be placed on play near the end of the season.  This was made validated by the seed that Notre Dame was awarded.  The decision-makers obviously took notice to this "new" Irish squad.  Can ND be considered a "Sweet 16" sleeper as a 6 seed?  Maybe.  One thing is certain: if people didn't notice ND's valiant late-season push, the 6 seed will certainly turn some heads.  Notre Dame has more than Irish eyes watching them now. 
 
Go Irish!  Beat Monarchs!

Irish Dance to Brey's New Tune