Notre Dame coach Mike Brey stepping down at end of season

Mike Brey needed only one season to turn Notre Dame from a forgotten program into an NCAA Tournament team. He spent the next 22 seasons chasing the school’s second

Final Four appearance, and this season will be his last chance. On Thursday, Notre Dame announced Brey would be stepping down at the end of the season after winning a

school-record 481 games and leading the program for a school-record 23 years. In a statement, Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick indicated Brey would remain on staff in an as-yet

undefined capacity. “It has been a great run for me and our program over the past two decades, but it is time for a new voice to lead this group into the future,” the

63-year-old Brey said in a statement released by the athletic department. “I want to thank our student-athletes, assistant coaches and support staff who have played such a key

role in the culture we have created.” Notre Dame scheduled a news conference for Friday. Notre Dame coach Mike BreyAP Brey left Delaware in July 2000 after taking

the Blue Hens to two NCAA Tournaments in three seasons — something that seemed little more than an afterthought in South Bend, considering that in the nine seasons following

Digger Phelps’ retirement in 1991, Notre Dame’s once blue-chip program had been shut out of the NCAA tourney and had earned only three NIT bids. But the man who served as

an assistant under America’s best-known prep coach — Morgan Wootten at Maryland’s DeMatha High School — and under Division I’s winningest college coach, Mike Krzyzewski, helped

Notre Dame return to its more glorious days.