If you wanted to look at one statistic to explain our unexpected success, I believe that it's 3-point FG defense, where we rate #1 in BE play. This is a significant departure from most of Brey's past teams, and having those two ballhawks in Atkins and Grant defending the top of the circle makes all the difference, IMO.

How it took Brey more than a decade to find two players like this is perhaps a better question. Part of it may be Brey changing his focus w/r/t recruiting, and I think it's safe to say that part of it comes down to cleaning up the shitbox that was the JACC in its prior iteration. That has allowed him the opportunity to recruit a better class of prospects over the past couple years, which he has.

Brey has been ridiculed in the past for his short benches, and this current team represents his shortest yet with what amounts to a 6-man team. Embracing a slower tempo on offense has allowed his guys to exert themselves to a greater degree on the other end, and the result has been a more well-balanced team on both ends of the floor. So much of the credit has to go to the coach not just for the personnel upgrade but also for adapting his philosophy after years of moderate success to address a pervasive shortcoming in his teams. He could have said, "Hey, I'm Mike Brey, two-time BE coach of the year. I've won games like this for close to a decade now, and this is how my teams play". The fact that he's seemingly gone back to the drawing board is laudable.

It's going to be very interesting to see how much Brey's approach will change as another wave of quality athletes joins the team over the next two years. My suspicion is that we'll see a return to a quicker tempo on offense but with a deeper rotation and more substitutions to maintain the level of play on the defensive end. It seems that Brey's philosophy all along has been to get as much out of his best players as possible, which is perfectly justified when you're only carrying 6 or 7 guys at any given time who are BE-quality players. But when you can go 8 or 9 or even 10 deep and the gap between your #2 or #3 and #8 or #9 isn't that significant, it opens a lot of possibilities. And I think that's where we may find ourselves two or three years down the road, which is exciting.

On the women's side, I think it's a confluence of a legitimate star player and a seasoned, experienced team. We won't always be as good as we are this season, but McGraw has an opportunity to raise the water level of the program because the traditional powers like UConn and Tennessee aren't quite what they have been in the past. But she needs to strike while the iron is hot on the recruiting front.

literally a month ago the Men's team was sitting at 9-6, staring the Big East schedule in the face and wondering whether they were going to be able to do enough to get an NIT invite when all was said and done. Nobody was talking about Mike Brey for 'Coach of the Year' or wondering what the hell was wrong with our AD for not getting Brey's contract extension done.

With that said, Brey has done a tremendous job with this squad. But it sort of begs the question of how, after so many years with Brey at the helm, are we fielding a team with this level of talent... our two-star injured star notwithstanding.

My humble and uneducated opinion(s)

Men - ND's shifted their defensive tactic towards being more aggressive on the wings. Recent Brey teams have tended to sag off on the wings to protect the entry pass. This year ND is being more aggressive than I can recently recall in bringing pressure on the perimeter. What's made this successful is ND's length. Next time you watch ND take a close look at Connaughton, Grant, Atkins, Brooks and S. Martin. All of those guys are long and when they get up on an opposing players their length creates problems on entry passes. In sum defense starts at the point and ND is simply doing a much, much better job of pressuring the point and not allowing opposing offenses to setup, get comfortable, and do whatever the hell they want to initiate their offense.

Women (I'm no C(hris)Biebel) - ND is a veteran team that has experience everywhere. SkyDigg is the headliner but that team is as good as Devereaux Peters. When she's on, combined with SkyDigg, it gives ND as good of a 1-2 punch (inside/outside combination) as their is in women's college basketball. On top of that they have some really, really good complimentary players like Brittney Mallory, Kayla McBride, and Natalie Achonwa who can play off Diggins & Peters while complimenting them. To put it another way, ND has two star players (that you have to account for) and they are really balanced beyond that. In tandem that's just a really hard combination to beat.

All that said, I think their real secret weapon is Niele Ivey.

FWIW, I saw the ND/Baylor game and ND could have won that game with a better shooting effort and a better defensive effort on the perimeter. If there is a rematch I like ND's chances.

The improvement in defense is All Of The Above. Previously, you had a lot of very skilled offensive players who maybe weren't the best on the other end (Colin Falls, Kyle McAlarney) or were simply undersized (Tory Jackson). Now you have Eric Atkins (good size for a point guard) and the combination of Jerian Grant, Drago and Pat Connaughton, all who have weirdly long arms. Previously, when teams would get hot from three against us, we were always in the area but not contesting that hard. Now? Ask poor Ashton Gibbs what it was like to have Eric Atkins draped on him for forty minutes.

The switch to the burn offense has also helped, as it allows players to rest on offense and put a renewed focus on defense. (Mike Brey 1.0 was not ashamed to say his plan on defense was to score more points than the other team on offense.) It requires superhuman efforts from your ball-handlers to go that hard on both ends (which is what we're getting from Atkins, who plays great defense and handles the ball for 40 minutes with a turnover or two a game, and Jerian Grant, who has one of the best assist:turnover ratios in the land), but it allows the Jack Cooleys of the world to conserve energy.

What we will hopefully be seeing in the next few years is a team that has the depth on the wings to play at an early Brey-style of pace on offense but also maintain this level of intensity on defense. Seems like the right guys are in the pipeline, so fingers crossed.