Brey has never been a great recruiter. The most heralded guys to come through in the last 20 years was a Bender (Demetrius Jackson), but it's getting worse. And even then he'd supplement it with a transfer or 3 each year.
With the exodus over the last 3 years, Brey either needs to step up his transfer game or go the way of Ty Willingham....Because the big knock on Ty was that he wasn't recruiting at the right level to compete. The exact same should be said about Brey.
And then compare Brey to a guy like Scott Drew of Baylor, who took over 3 years after Brey did at ND. That dude literally took over a program near the death penalty because one player shot another player and the coach (in addition to paying players) covered it up and tried to interfere with an investigation. Then, Drew had to deal with being the stepchild in the Big 12 and in the State of Texas, and he's still competing at a very high level.
There's simply no excuse for the lack of competitiveness of our basketball team. Arguably, the basketball team should be easier to stock with talent because it only takes 3 studs and a lot of 'good guys' to do well. We are just soft, fat and lazy. We need to ask more of the basketball program.
I'm not a big fan. You get most of these guys now for one year, possibly two, and how many of them translate to the high-major game? Look at the guy ND wanted badly last year who picked UNC. He's on a bad UNC team and he's done nothing. I'd much rather have freshmen get those scholarships. ND is actually in on a top 100 guy who reclassified to the Class of 2020, and there are a couple other guys they've scouted who look to be good. Give a couple of them the scholarships, unless they can somehow get the Harvard transfer, Seth Towns, on campus and snag a committment.