How Mike Brey is making a case for Notre Dame forward Paul Atkinson Jr. to earn a sixth-year waiver

On3 imageby:Patrick Engel02/23/22

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Mike Brey built his 2021-22 Notre Dame basketball roster with one sure thing in mind.

Yale grad transfer Paul Atkinson Jr. would be out of eligibility and not an option for 2022-23.

In a year where “super seniors” became possible thanks to the NCAA’s COVID-19 exemption, Brey at least knew one scholarship spot would open to accommodate any of the three Notre Dame seniors (Dane Goodwin, Nate Laszewski and Prentiss Hubb) who wished to use that exemption and return for a fifth year.

Now, though, Brey is pitching for Atkinson to get an avenue to return. He is among the ACC coaches pushing for a waiver that would allow Atkinson and others in his position to play college basketball next season.

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The crux of his and other coaches’ wish is this:

• The Ivy League canceled the 2020-21 season and did not bend its policy that prohibits graduate students from competing for its members’ athletic programs. That meant Atkinson and all Ivy League 2020-21 seniors had no option of playing that season. They needed to declare it a redshirt year and transfer if they wished to play in 2021-22.

• Meanwhile, fall and winter sport athletes at other universities played a season in 2020-21 knowing it wouldn’t count toward their eligibility – not even as a redshirt – meaning they could play five full seasons. Ivy League players who had their 2020-21 season canceled would only get four.

The COVID-19 exemption was put in place as a way of saying, “this year doesn’t count.” For players who had zero opportunity for a 2020-21 season, though, the waiver is asking for an extra year to be tacked on. All told, it’s pushing the envelope on the exemption’s intent. But it’s a small group of athletes in each sport, and approving it would grant them the same five-season opportunity as everyone else.

“That would be fair, like we did with last year’s transfers making them eligible in the midst of the pandemic,” Brey said.

Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim – whose son Jimmy was in Atkinson’s spot and transferred from Cornell to the Orange – started the movement in January by saying he would petition for a waiver that gives Jimmy the option to play in 2022-23.

“Everybody in the country last year got to play and get an extra year,” Boeheim said. “The Ivy League didn’t get to play. I’d think any player from the Ivy League should get the extra year, it should be supported by the Ivy League, but I don’t know that it is.”

Brey has sensed the same pushback, and he’s sympathetic toward it to a degree.

“If all of a sudden you say those Ivy League kids get a sixth year, then if I’m a sophomore at Penn, I could say, ‘I could go to Villanova and get not only a fifth but a sixth year?’” Brey said. “I get that. That’s why I think it’s crickets when I try to reach out.”

The Ivy League did not respond to BlueandGold.com’s request for comment.

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If what Brey outlined is indeed the Ivy’s concern, he has a solution: Grant the waiver only to Atkinson and Jimmy Boeheim’s class – not just in basketball, but all sports.

“I wish they’d look at it as just that group of kids,” Brey said. “They want to protect their student-athletes, and I get that. But for Paul’s class – who had to swallow a whole year of nothing at all – it’d be the right thing to do.”

Brey thinks so even if it’s a moot point in most cases because the player wishes to move on with his life.

Jim Boeheim said his son has not definitively told him he wants to play the fifth year. Atkinson said Brey has informed him of the waiver efforts, but hasn’t decided he would for sure use it. He will earn his master’s degree in management this spring, after all. He turns 23 in March. A professional basketball contract somewhere likely awaits. Still, it would be ideal to know he has the choice to play another year at Notre Dame is available when making that decision.

“It’d be cool to have the option,” Atkinson said. “If it’s not for me, for other guys who’d want to jump on it. I’m not sure where I am on that right now and haven’t really thought about it.”

With the waiver still more conceptual than reality, he need not give it too much thought right now.

“In the next month, I’d like to get to where there’s some discussion on it and see where we’re at,” Brey said. “We may run into a brick wall.”

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