Jan. 15, 2008
Notre Dame head coach Mike Brey
“It was a Big East win. I thought that in the first half, their athletic ability on offense and their strength defensively really bothered us; we couldn’t get into any kind of rhythm.”
“I’m proud of our group because they did a great job responding, because that’s kind of a tough half time. You know, you’re coming off Saturday, that wasn’t a lot of fun, and maybe you’re worried a little bit. I think they showed great resiliency.”
“We did a good job. We ran. We got running, which I think helped us.”
“Probably, what started us were those two possessions of full court defense… That got us going, and the building going and kind of jump started the whole thing, and that’s kind of what you need in a game like that.”
“When you don’t play as well as you’ve been playing, you have to give credit to the guys you’re playing against. Cincinnati is coming in here very confident… and physically, they’ve got men out there. I think what helped us was that they got a little tired in the second half, and we ran, and the pressure, the two steals, kind of jump started the whole building and our group.”
“I thought we did a better job of just throwing it out easily from the low post when they doubled Harangody, and just taking a shot.”
Notre Dame Player Quotes
So. F Luke Harangody
On his performance in the first half…
“Things weren’t going well for me in the first half. After halftime my game matured and I just relaxed and let the game come to me”
On the talk in the locker room at halftime…
“Coach got on us about how we were playing. He said we were sleepwalking out there, and we needed to relax and just play. We were on each other but at the same time we realized that seven points wasn’t significant to us”
On their confidence level after the performance against Marquette and this game’s first half…
“We were confident, because we know what we are capable of. But we were very resilient after halftime. We came out with good defense as soon as the second half began”
Jr. G Kyle McAlarney On their performance in the first half…
“We weren’t boxing out and we weren’t focused enough on the game in the first half. But we know when we aren’t having a good game, so we came out with good defense after halftime”
On their next road game…
“We need to play like we played here in the second half. We need to run and play good defense; that’s when we play our best. We can’t think about it being a road game, we just need to go for it”
Sr. F Rob Kurz On their approach to motivating each other…
“We have to pick each other up. We have a lot of guys that are good at talking to the team when things aren’t going well. Coach always says just have fun, and we weren’t having fun in the first half”
On adjustments made in the second half…
“We just stopped turning down shots. Coach told us if you miss a shot don’t let it affect how you play on the defensive end. But we didn’t do anything drastic. We knew we had to do a better job on the glass and stop them from getting second shots”
Cincinnati Head Coach Mick Cronin
On guarding Notre Dame forward Luke Harangody…
“We limited his touches in the first half, and when he did get touches we had our game plan to keep guys around him. You have to give Mike Brey a lot of credit for his adjustments in the locker room. They did a good job of spreading out and making it tougher to double him in the second half. All of our guys guarding him are first year players and I think their inexperience showed.”
“We let him catch it in his comfort zone and it put too much pressure on us defensively. We worked to keep it out of there in the first half, second half we let them throw it in.”
On the loss…
“In my opinion, we lost the game in the first half. We should have been up by fifteen or twenty in the first half. We missed some wide-open shots, lay ups. We had every opportunity to have a double-digit lead. Notre Dame is a great team at home. They aren’t going to play that way forever. They are a juggernaut at home and we didn’t have a big enough of a lead.” Cincinnati Player Quotes
Freshman Forward Kenny Belton
On Cincinnati’s game strategy…
“I just wanted to get in there and help us get a win. Our main focus was to get a win. I didn’t care what it took as long as I could get in there and contribute.
On his playing time…
“I’m starting to feel a little bit more comfortable playing. I’m hoping that the comfort will begin to add up game by game so that I can help my team in big games.”
On Notre Dame Forward Luke Harangody…
“He was the main factor in their win. You can’t say too much else about it.
Senior Center Adam Hrycaniuk
On Notre Dame Forward Luke Harangody…
“It was tough to stop him. He was making his shots. We didn’t execute our defensive plays. We didn’t trap well enough.”
On Cincinnati’s second half play…
“We didn’t concentrate well enough and didn’t play defense as well as we did in the first half. They out-rebounded us.”