On a November morning in 2003, Notre Dame basketball coach
Mike Brey met with then-athletic director
Kevin White, who had a jaw-dropping piece of advice for him: Get ready to join the Big Ten Conference.
For a couple days, Brey said Thursday, he was mentally preparing to switch leagues as the Big East went through a realignment process that started when Boston College, Miami and Virginia Tech left for the ACC. The Big East eventually added five teams, ensuring its stability and keeping Notre Dame where it was.
"Now I don't even think about that," Brey said about being in the Big Ten. "We are in the Big East and we're going to be in the Big East for a while and, obviously, independent football is a very, very important part of the fabric of this place. So as that stays the same, our Olympic sports and basketball will stay in the Big East. But for about a 48-hour window, I thought real hard about that and was trying to figure out about it, because it was presented to me."
Given Notre Dame's up-and-down-the-court playing style, it's hard to imagine the Irish meshing with the grind-it-out Big Ten, and Brey said he might have had to tweak his philosophy to play in the Big Ten. He also wondered if Notre Dame's fast pace might give his team an advantage.
"I think how we play here and how I've coached and given the clientele we attract, I don't think we'd have sat here and gone, 'Oh, we have to do all these things,'" Brey said, referring to slowing it down and being more physical. "I think I was thinking, 'OK, if we're in that league, how does our style play in that league?' Is it a league that's a little more half-court? I think year-in and year-out, it has been one, and maybe more of a possession-by-possession league. What would be your niche?"
Brey also wondered how a move to a Midwest-based league would affect his recruiting on the East Coast.
"There was anxiety," Brey said. "God, what does that mean to our Eastern connections? We've recruited pretty well in that corridor of D.C. to Boston. What will that mean, us going back in there? Will we have any kind of clout if we're playing in the Big Ten?"
During that uncertain period for the Big East, the league had a coaches' meeting — with the coaches not even sure there was a league anymore.
"We didn't know if we were going to exist," Brey said. "It was the weirdest meeting."
As soon as Brey entered the meeting, Syracuse coach
Jim Boeheim said, "So you guys are going to Big Ten, right?"
It was almost a done deal.
"That was an interesting 48 hours, no question," Brey said.