TBT Talk: Notre Dame's Mike Brey will work game on ESPNU

Notre Dame men’s basketball coach Mike Brey was a fan in the stands last summer when a group of his former players won the $500,000 championship prize in the first installment of The Basketball Tournament.

When that group of Notre Dame Fighting Alumni convenes next month in Chicago to defend their title in the second-annual tournament, which now carries a winner-take-all grand prize of $1 million, Brey again will be in attendance.

This time, he’ll be working as a television talking head.

The Tribune has learned that Brey is scheduled to team up with Jack Nolan, the radio play-by-play voice of Notre Dame men’s basketball, when the Notre Dame Fighting Alumni open TBT play July 23.

Brey will serve as a color analyst alongside Nolan for the call of the game on ESPNU.

Thanks to its championship win last summer, Notre Dame receives a first-round tournament bye and begins play July 23 in Chicago at McGrath-Phillips Arena on the campus of DePaul University. Tip-off is 8 p.m. (South Bend time).

Scheduled to compete for Notre Dame are former Irish forwards Tim Abromaitis, Torin Francis, Rob Kurz, Ty Nash and Carleton Scott and guards Eric Atkins, Ryan Ayers, Russell Carter, Colin Falls, Ben Hansbrough, Tory Jackson and Kieran Piller, who served last season as coach/general manager. He will again be assisted by former Irish forward Jordan Cornette.

Abromaitis, Atkins, Hansbrough and Scott are new additions to the team that won the 32-team, single-elimination tournament last summer. The tournament now expands to 96 teams split into four geographic regions – Midwest (Chicago), Northeast (Philadelphia), South (Atlanta) and West (Los Angeles). The tournament’s Final Four will be the weekend of Aug. 1 at Rose Hill Gym on the campus of Fordham University in the Bronx, N.Y.

The Aug. 2 championship game will be televised by ESPN at 3 p.m.

The Notre Dame Fighting Alumni was the only squad to participate in TBT last summer comprised entirely of nearly all former players. This summer, the tournament features alumni teams from Colorado, Oklahoma, St. Louis, Syracuse, Virginia and Wisconsin.

For more information, go to www.thetournament.com