Dec. 6, 2014

Recap | Box Score | Notes | Photo Gallery

Notre Dame Head Coach Mike Brey

Opening Statement…
“That was a tough one. They are hard to play against because they are so athletic defensively, moving around, match-up zone, defensive press, long possessions, ball screens and quick guards. I think defense was the answer for us. We weren’t in the best of offensive rhythms. I think you have to give Farleigh Dickinson credit for that, but we defended well enough to not get bit tonight. The area where we have grown showed up tonight–offense isn’t going great and we’re not making shots, but we are able to guard. We are able to go back and be mentally tough enough to still defend. I think we had eight straight stops to start the game. I am pleased with today and let’s keep moving forward.”

On Zach Auguste…
“He needed a big bounce-back night and I told him before the game, `be the leading rebounder.’ That’s a great way to bounce back, and getting 11 rebounds, I thought he really tried to digest that. He made some strong moves around the bucket and he didn’t shoot any fade-aways. We are going to keep those out of the repertoire. He was strong around the basket and he was active getting the ball off the backboard on both ends.”

On Steve Vasturia…
“Steve Vasturia, Steve Vasturia, Steve Vasturia. The guy is so solid. He is always the fourth guy we talk about. He is one heck of a basketball player. He is so reliable defensively, whether he is guarding the ball or helping. The charge the other night might have been one of the biggest plays of the night. One thing we talked to him about before the Michigan State game was to attack more and look to score and be more aggressive offensively, not just a safe. I think he’s scored in double digits in the last two games and we need him to that. When gets in, he gets fouled and makes free throws. His defensive and driving gave us the spurt right before halftime to get it to 10.

On Matt Farrell…
“I was thinking about him because with V.J. Beachem down, we still have all those forwards. He’s just another perimeter player and I wanted to look at that. It was a really good matchup because they are small and they were playing four guards. I just put him in there because maybe we need him on the floor some. He is a shot maker for us, and that’s what Beachem gave us. We have a logjam of forwards and we want to get a guard in there and evaluate that this week. “

On team leadership…
“Pat Connaughton, Jerian Grant, and Demetrius Jackson have a great tone of leadership. One thing that is clear is that Demetrius Jackson is becoming more of a voice and a leader in that locker room. And that’s a good thing.”

On the relationship between Zach Auguste and Austin Torres…
“Austin is good with Zach and vice versa. They love to argue and get on each other, but they are also good at picking each other up. The one thing that was great about Zach the other night is that he was a terrific cheerleader. He was into it. He had a tough game and he was cheering for Torres and he was really happy for him. That’s really awesome to see.”

Pat Connaughton · Senior · Guard

On the team’s conversation when the outside shots aren’t falling…
“It’s more or less `let’s attack.’ We’re a great shooting team, but there are going to be nights when you’re not on your game and you’re not going to be shooting the ball particularly well. You just have to figure out how to positively affect the game in other ways, and I thought we did that by attacking the basket, shooting the free throws, dishing it off to the big guys and getting some buckets. Then it opens up the game on a whole different level.”

On staying focused after a big win…
“I think we would’ve made sure we were ready for this game, but at the end of the day, we did not want to fall so easily. We know all too well from last year there are those non-big name teams who have great players, and this was one of those teams. They played us tough in the first half, and it was just a matter of methodically extending the lead.”

On Farleigh Dickinson’s scrappiness…
“You have to give credit to their team. They’ve got some great core players who can really score, and it was good for us to bounce off a big win and take care of business. That’s what we tried to harp on in the locker room–taking care of business, and making sure we didn’t let one slip.”

Steve Vasturia · Sophomore · Guard

On the reliability of the defense…
“It’s great that when we’re struggling offensively, we can rely on our defense–that’s the way you win tough games. I think we made big strides in that part of the game and it’s really helped us.”

On his reflection of the game…
“This was a big test for us. We wanted to come in focused, and they are a good team, so we wanted to lock in defensively and come out here with another win.”

On a hard-fought win…
“I think you’re going to play a lot of games, and there are going to be different ways to win, and good teams find a way to win. If you’re not playing that well offensively, you have to find a way to get stops on defense. We also made some plays in transition.”

On the maturation of the team…
“I think we’re learning every day. We’re growing with each game, and that’s how you’re successful over the long year.

On staying focused for Mount Saint Mary’s…
“I think we prepare the same way we did for this game. We have to take it one day at a time. We saw a bunch of teams lose today and we wanted to make sure we had the win. We have another opportunity to win, and so we’re going to come out and play one hundred percent.”

Jerian Grant · Senior · Guard

On the impact of the Purdue, Michigan and Georgia Tech losses…
“The impact was huge. We were going to be focused for this game regardless, but I think that sharpened up everyone’s attention up a little bit. All of those teams won their ACC or Big Ten Challenge game, and we did too. We did not want to look past this team at all, and we did not want to join that club of teams that won their games and then lost the next time.”

On Farleigh Dickinson being scrappy…
“They are a team that can play, so we had to stay focused and compete.”

On the team’s momentum…
“We are playing well. We want to get out there and play. No matter who we are playing against, we have to play our game. Coach told us to be ready for this team, and there are no let-ups after a big win, so that is what we did.”

On the defense triggering the offense…
“They ran a match-up zone and that is something that we have not seen all season. We kind of had to figure that out, but as long as our defense is playing well, we were able to stay up and eventually beat them.”

Zach Auguste · Junior · Forward

On his mindset for the game …
“I had to get back to the simple things. My team needed me to rebound and to play defense. That is what I focused on, and I think I did a good job.”

On pulling away in the second half…
“I think that we got some good momentum. Coach told us that there were a couple of big-time teams that lost to some teams that were not as good, but he just emphasized that we needed to play together.”

On going into tonight’s game…
“I was looking forward to bouncing back from last game. We had a great team win, but individually I wanted to help out the team. They needed my help today. I just needed to rebound and play some good defense.

On handling ups and downs…
“I have great teammates who help me to keep my head up.”

On the guards making his job easier…
“Honestly, it is so easy. They are great distributors and find a way to get me the ball. They can score, play defense and everything else. I am so happy to have them on my team.”

Fairleigh Dickinson Quotes

Mustafaa Jones · Senior · Guard

On keeping the game competitive early…
“One of our slogans is `play every second, every minute; play hard, pay embarrassingly hard.’ That’s what we wanted to do and early we did. Down the stretch, we just didn’t have enough bodies to continue the game.”

On his performance…
“Honestly, it is not even about me. It’s about the team and the team effort and guys finding me. Without them I can’t do what I do, so I give the credit to my team for my performance.”

On start to the game…
“Early on, we got in the lane and we found guys. In the second half, we kind of got out of it and took some bad shots. We rushed shots. We’re a young team right now. That’s not an excuse, but we’re going to continue to build, work on it at practice and go into conference play with our heads held high.”

On playing at Notre Dame…
“It’s a great experience for me as a senior captain and even our freshmen. It’s a great experience to play an Atlantic Coast Conference team and measure and see where we are at talent-wise. We all want to play these big schools and we end up where we end up and it is a great experience.”

On Jerian Grant…
“He’s a good player, very good player. He attacks. He’s always on the attack. He’s a hard guard. We did the best we could. We know that he can score well. We knew he could get a lot of isolations, so we felt like we won that one on one battle. He didn’t score too much.”

On facing Notre Dame after its win over Michigan State…
“We knew they would be excited about that win because Michigan State was 18th in the country. That was a big upset for them. We knew that they would be ready for us and we just wanted to come in here and try to get an upset.”

On takeaways from the game…
“The biggest thing I take away is that we played hard and we competed. Binghamton got blown out and Navy blown out by Notre Dame. We lost by 20, but that happened late in the game. We were right there with them it was just a few mistakes here and there and it cost us the game.”

Fairleigh Dickinson Head Coach Greg Herenda

Opening statement…
“First of all, major privilege to play in South Bend against the University of Notre Dame. My brother is a 1974 graduate. He was at the game that broke the 88-game winning steak here against UCLA. My team was honored and privileged to play against a really, really good team. As far as the game goes, Mike’s (Brey) got a really, really good team. They have prolific three point shooters. We kind of took that away early, and then they just figured out that they could go to the basket against us and that we were thin inside. And once that occurs, it was difficult to stop the train. The train was out of the station. With that being said, I’m very proud of my team. Notre Dame at home was averaging, I believe, above 85, close to 90 points a game. Defensively we held them to 23% from three and 50% (from the field), which is high, but I’m just proud of my guys. We came in, we fought hard. But they’ve got a multitude of scorers, of athletes. Their guard combination is one of the best in the country and we know that. We just did our best and it just wasn’t good enough to handle a really, really good Notre Dame basketball team.”

On holding them from three-point range…
“Just to get to shooters. When you have to get to those shooters so hard, now there’s their quickness. (Pat) Connaughton is just a really smart player. And then (Jerian) Grant is a major problem, and (Demetrius) Jackson. But you know, we held Jackson to eight (points), we held Grant to 15. (Steve) Vasturia is a Jersey kid that we knew about, and he played on a great AAU team. So they just have a lot of weapons offensively and I’m just surprised how underrated they are nationally as a team, but I think eventually people are going to find out what they found out against Michigan State as the year goes on. This is a very potent offensive, ACC team. An NCAA (tournament) caliber team for sure.”

On what he looks forward to in his team moving forward…
“You know, we went to Saint Joe’s and played in a hostile environment and we beat Saint Joe’s on opening night. They just fight. We’ve got a lot of inexperience on our team. We’re starting a freshman point guard. We’ve got a lot of unproven quantities. We played at Rutgers, at Notre Dame, at Saint Joe’s, Columbia is good. We haven’t played a bad team. We had a great win against Princeton. I’m really happy. We drive. So when we start playing like-opponents, I think we’re going to be in good shape. You now, Notre Dame is not like Fairleigh Dickinson University. We have a great institution and a great basketball program but this is high, major, college basketball. I think we showed well against a high, major team. Our practices are really special and they transport to games. I just love Mike (Brey) as a coach. He’s a great offensive coach; underrated defensive coach. And he lets his kids play. They have fun playing. Tonight I think they had to work for that win. It wasn’t just show up and go up and down and we’re going to run away and hide. We pressed them a little bit, we zoned them, we manned them. We did what we could. But at the end of the day, ACC talent kind of wore us down.”