Notre Dame Quickly Names Brey Coach

Notre Dame didn’t waste any time in offering Mike Brey the job as its basketball coach, and Brey didn’t hesitate in accepting.

Brey, 99-52 in five years at Delaware, was introduced Friday as the new Irish coach.

“I think I can give you 15 great years; after that, I think I’m going to have to reevaluate,” Brey said.

Brey replaces Matt Doherty, who left for North Carolina after a year at Notre Dame.

Brey met with a three-member committee Thursday night in Washington, returned home to Newark, Del., got a call after midnight, and accepted immediately, the Wilmington (Del.) News Journal reported.

Brey had just signed a five-year contract extension at Delaware after guiding the Blue Hens to their third consecutive 20-victory season and the school’s first NIT bid.

Brey, 41, previously was an assistant to Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski for eight years.

Notre Dame Athletic Director Kevin White said Brey was the only person offered the job, denying reports of an offer to Oregon Coach Ernie Kent. Kent told the Register-Guard of Eugene that Notre Dame needed someone right away, and that took him out of the running.

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Les Robinson, who coached basketball at the Citadel from 1975-85 and had been North Carolina State’s athletic director the last four years, has returned to the Citadel as athletic director. . . . Phil Spence, 46, a member of North Carolina State’s 1974 NCAA title team, was named coach at North Carolina Central.

Tennis

After Andre Agassi took himself out of next week’s Davis Cup semifinals at Santander, Spain, citing injuries suffered in an auto accident in Las Vegas Sunday night, the validity of the accident was questioned because there was no police report.

“I actually know the person, and it wasn’t my intention to take this further,” Agassi told national radio talk-show host Jim Rome. “There was a lot of damage, not just to my car, but apparently to my back.”

Agassi said George Freed, the Davis Cup doctor, made the decision that he should not play.

U.S. captain John McEnroe added Vince Spadea to the Davis Cup team, but kept alive the idea that he might play doubles.

Australia clinched a berth in the Davis Cup finals, taking a 3-0 lead over Brazil when the doubles team of Sandon Stolle and Mark Woodforde defeated Gustavo Kuerten and Jaime Oncins, 6-7 (3), 6-4, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, at Brisbane.

Top-seeded Magnus Norman beat Nicolas Massu of Chile, 6-2, 6-4, and No. 3 Andreas Vinciguerra routed Jeff Tarango, 6-1, 6-2, in the quarterfinals of the Swedish Open at Bastad, setting up a possible all-Swedish final. . . . Peter Wessels beat fourth-seeded Jonas Bjorkman, 7-6 (7-5), 6-3, to advance to the semifinals of the Hall of Fame Championships at Newport, R.I. Wessels next faces Wayne Arthurs, who beat 18-year-old Mardy Fish, 6-3, 6-2.

NBC’s cumulative TV ratings from its 14 days of coverage of Wimbledon were the network’s highest since 1992. The network said it earned a 3.3 rating and 11 share for its 35 1/2 hours of telecasts, mostly shown on tape delay.

International Sports

Athletic officials in Jamaica are hinting they will allow Merlene Ottey to compete at the Olympic Games in Sydney even if she fails to meet Olympic qualifying standards at the country’s trials next weekend. Ottey, 40, was banned for a year after she tested positive for the steroid nandrolone, then was reinstated last week after it was shown that a Swiss laboratory had improperly tested her urine sample.

One day after German officials cleared former Olympic 5,000-meter champion Dieter Baumann of doping charges, IAAF official Istvan Gyulai said an arbitration panel could still take up the case. The German federation ruled that irregularities and neglect had surfaced “in the taking, storage and transport of urine samples.”

Molly Freedman of Washington set a meet record with a time of 2 minutes 15.08 seconds to win the women’s 200-meter butterfly in the USA Swimming Challenge/Long Island Open at East Meadow, N.Y. Freedman, 19, postponed accepting a scholarship to North Carolina for a year so she could train for the Olympics. Mike Phelps of Baltimore set a meet record with a 2:00.32 in the 200 butterfly to advance to the Olympic trials.

Miscellany

Greg Ray, the defending IRL champion, needed only one lap at Atlanta Motor Speedway to win his fourth pole of the year, producing a speed of 216.104 mph that was nearly three mph quicker than the next-fastest car in qualifying for the Midas 500 Classic.

Sarah Fisher, 19, had the best qualifying run for a woman in the history of Indy-car racing, claiming the fifth spot in the 25-car field at 211.839.

Gary Scelzi led top-fuel qualifying in the Mopar Parts Mile-High Nationals near Denver with a quarter-mile run of 4.697 seconds at a top speed of 308.21 mph.

Kelsey Osburn, a infielder for the Arizona Wildcats who has been playing minor league baseball in Newark, N.Y., near Rochester, remained in a coma for a third day after being hit in the right temple during a base-running drill Tuesday night.