We're quite sure that when the first game between Duke and Notre Dame as ACC stablemates draws close, Coach K will have many warm and kind things to say about Notre Dame and his former assistant Mike Brey, who he has supported and mentored throughout his college career. And it's not like he's attacking Brey here. Not even close.
But he does go pretty hard after Notre Dame as an ACC partial member, and Brey responds pretty forcefully:
K:Â "I think you can't do something for one that you're not willing to do for all in these type of situations. I would never have accepted personally them coming in and not being totally in. Why don't Duke and North Carolina do something different in basketball? I mean it's not right. I'm happy that they're part of it I'm just not happy the way that they're a part of it...They add value but, just being old-fashioned, (if) we're playing cards, we all get five cards. That's why they were never a member of the Big Ten."
Brey: "First of all, isn't Mike Catholic? I feel I have to respond on behalf of my Irish. Come on, man. Come on. In this time of conference realignment, you've got to think outside the box and (ACC commissioner) John Swofford did that. He got us and we're in...Let's wake up and smell the roses. This is a whole new era. ... That's been out there â 'God, they got in, but they got in without bringing football,' I'm like, 'We're in man, pat us on the back. We're in the family...' Mike should just hug us and welcome us. Now let's go make it the best league in the country."
We'd love to be a fly on the wall for the next phone call between these two. And we're quite sure, having spent a lot of time in Duke locker rooms, that Brey knows precisely how Mike Krzyzewski reacts to people who come after him.
The Duke-Notre Dame game just became one of the most interesting of the year.