Mike Brey, Cormac Ryan, Marcus Hammond speak after Notre Dame loss

Read some final words summing up the season and a whole era of Irish basketball.

Notre Dame’s 67-64 loss to Virginia Tech in the ACC Tournament signaled the end of an era. Yes, it means [autotag]Mike Brey[/autotag]’s days as Irish coach are over, but it also means the end for many players on the roster, especially rotational players. Two of them are [autotag]Marcus Hammond[/autotag] and [autotag]Cormac Ryan[/autotag], players who didn’t begin their collegiate careers with the Irish but were the most impactful in Brey’s final game for the program. That allowed them to come out with Brey for the season’s last postgame news conference.

Hammond and Ryan sat next to Brey as he, among other things, called out the officials for a late lengthy review that ultimately resulted in a dead-ball technical for [autotag]Matt Zona[/autotag] that might have affected the game’s outcome. This came as the Irish were about to shoot their own free throws in a close contest. Brey has called out ACC officials before, and he apparently decided to do it one more time on his way out.

Here is what the Irish trio said after the game:

Michigan State offers 2023 4-star QB Cameron Edge of DeMatha Catholic in Maryland

Michigan State is looking to once again tap into the DeMatha Catholic well — this time with four-star quarterback Cameron Edge.

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Michigan State is looking to once again tap into the DeMatha Catholic well — this time with four-star quarterback Cameron Edge.

Edge — who is ranked as the No. 6 pro-style quarterback in the 2023 class — announced on Tuesday that Michigan State has extended him a scholarship offer. Edge hails from DeMatha Catholic in Maryland — which is where former Spartans linebacker and current Director of Player Engagement Darien Harris played in high school.

Edge is ranked by 247Sports as the No. 72 overall prospect in the 2023 class and No. 2 player from Maryland.

Edge holds scholarship offers from 13 schools already, including Michigan State, Maryland, LSU, Kentucky, Boston College, Oregon, Penn State, Pitt, Syracuse, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

Edge will clearly be a top priority for the Spartans in the 2023 class, and hopefully, Harris can potentially help sway him towards the green-and-white. If anything, it won’t hurt the Spartans’ chances at landing this top tier prospect.

Check out highlights of Edge below — courtesy of his Hudl page:

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Notre Dame extends offer to guard recruit Rodney Rice

Think a kid from Mike Brey’s alma mater will be swayed by that connection?

With several guards entering their senior seasons, Notre Dame will need to replenish its backcourt soon. It goes without saying, but Mike Brey and his staff intend to pull out every stop to make sure new players come to South Bend and thrive in the guard position. How about going after a player from DeMatha Catholic in Maryland, Brey’s alma mater? We know that’s happened after recruit Rodney Rice announced an offer had been made Monday night:

Rice checks in at 6-foot-4, 185 pounds, which is perfect for a guard. Notre Dame is the 22nd school to make him an offer, and 247Sports has Indiana, Louisville and Alabama as the most likely landing spots for Rice. He’s also drawn interest from Maryland, Rutgers, Michigan, Kentucky, South Carolina, Marquette, Oklahoma State, Penn State, Miami, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest and Illinois.

While Brey surely has been around long enough to know that sharing a high school with Rice won’t make a difference in the final decision, he has to be holding onto that hope somewhere in the back of his mind, right?

Notre Dame Legend Whitmore Dies at 73

Bob Whitmore was a pioneer for the Notre Dame basketball program The DeMatha (Md.) Catholic High School product chose to attend Notre Dame after an outrageous high school career that saw his team go 55-3 over his junior and senior seasons, even …

Bob Whitmore was a pioneer for the Notre Dame basketball program  The DeMatha (Md.) Catholic High School product chose to attend Notre Dame after an outrageous high school career that saw his team go 55-3 over his junior and senior seasons, even beating Lew Alcindor and Power Memorial (NY) in 1965.

It was at Notre Dame where Whitmore would again meet up with Alcindor, jumping against the legend in the first jump ball ever performed at the Joyce Center.

Whitmore scored 1580 points and secured 1053 rebounds in his three seasons for the Fighting Irish and helped lead them to the NIT Semi-finals his junior year before an NCAA Tournament appearance his senior season.

Current Notre Dame head basketball coach and fellow-DeMatha graduate Mike Brey remembered the Irish legend on Saturday.

“We have lost one of our great players, but also a great gentleman. Bob Whitmore laid a foundation for this program that is still being felt to this day. My thoughts and prayers go out to Bob’s family, friends and former teammates.” – Mike Brey

Whitmore helped establish a Notre Dame pipeline to the Washington, D.C. area which in turn helped direct Austin Carr, Adrian Dantley, Collis Jones, Sid Catlett, Don Williams, Jerian Grant, Prentiss Hubb and others to play basketball at Notre Dame.

Whitmore recorded 47 double-doubles in his 84 games at Notre Dame and finished with a career average of 18.8 points and 12.4 rebounds per game.  Whitmore’s six 20-point/20-rebound games remain the most in Notre Dame basketball history to this day.

Whitmore had been sick with a variety of health issues but was able to make it back to campus in 2019 to be inducted into the Purcell Pavilion Ring of Honor.

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Bob Whitmore was 73 years old.

Three-star Baltimore cornerback Antoine Booth commits to Michigan State

Mel Tucker lands his sixth commitment of the 2021 recruiting class.

Michigan State is reaching out east for their latest football recruit.

Cornerback Antoine Booth, a three-star prospect out of DeMatha Catholic in Baltimore, MD, announced his commitment to Michigan State Monday afternoon.

Booth chose Michigan State over power five offers from Maryland, Rutgers, and Virginia. He is rated an 84 in the 247Sports composite rankings and is the 26th-best player in the state of Maryland. Booth is the sixth commitment in MSU’s 2021 class and the second defensive back to make his pledge to MSU. Defensive line coach Ron Burton offered Booth in January and Mel Tucker reaffirmed that offer when he took over the program in February.

Booth is not the first Spartan to come from DeMatha Catholic. Former standout linebacker and current Director of Player Engagement Darrien Harris arrived to East Lansing from the Baltimore football powerhouse.

Michigan State’s 2021 class ranked 35th in the country prior to Booth’s pledge and has yet to be updated at the time of publishing.

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