The Mike Brey era at Notre Dame came to a close on Tuesday night, with a 67–64 loss to Virginia Tech in the ACC men’s basketball tournament.
The Fighting Irish finished 11–21 with a 3–17 record in league play, finishing in the No. 14 spot in the league. The team will miss the NCAA tournament after a return to the Big Dance a year ago, which was Brey’s program’s first appearance since 2017.
Naturally, Brey spent time after the game reflecting on his time at Notre Dame, which dates back to 2000. Now freed from the guise of the ACC, he also took aim at the officials over a late technical foul in the game on junior forward Matt Zona, saying that an “’A’ officiating crew” would not have made the call.
“I’ll be very honest now that I’m not in the league anymore,” Brey said, per Luke DeCock of The News & Observer. “I think that last play, if you have an ‘A’ officiating crew and that was not an ‘A’ crew, you say, ‘basketball play.’ And we shoot the free throws and play basketball. I think we got a little over analyzation on that part of it.
“Look, Virginia Tech made plays, but I don’t think that was handled right. Now, we had some turnovers and made mistakes too, but I think you go ‘basketball play’ in a great game and you shoot the free throws and you let the game play out. That’s a big-time crew.”
Of course, more focus was on the end of Brey’s tenure in South Bend and rightfully so. He was asked about his plans for after the game, and things were pretty simple: a cigar, maybe some Irish whiskey and time with his coaching staff.
“Tonight? I’m going to smoke a cigar. I’m going to go back and smoke a cigar and tonight I’m going to hang out a little bit and visit with my staff,” Brey said, via On3. “You need time to decompress. When you’re in the season, you’re just grinding every day. We’ll take a couple deep breaths, and tonight we’re just going to lay low.
“My comments about Irish whiskey last year after the Rutgers game, I’m not really a big whiskey guy, but man, everybody is sending me bottles. I have got a stash, even in my room here. Georgia Tech assistant, like—may hit some of that tonight.”
Brey leaves the Fighting Irish with a 483–280 record, 13 NCAA tournament appearances and a pair of trips to the Elite Eight.
