Feb. 24, 2015

Recap | Box Score | Notes | Photo Gallery

Notre Dame Head Coach Mike Brey

Opening statement…
“Their defense just stalled us. I thought we had some great looks from the three-point line, and you’ve got to make a few more of those to feel comfortable against their defense. I thought our defense was good enough to escape, and I love how we kept fighting and scratching, even though there wasn’t much rhythm to the game. But I thought [Trevor] Cooney’s two shots, those broke our back, especially the one in the corner. If you get a stop there, maybe it’s interesting. The one he hit in front of their bench was really a difficult stop. So, disappointing, but this has been a pretty resilient group and we’ve got a week to get our legs under us and get back to practice.”

On what about their defense was difficult to score on in the first half…
“I think what hurt us was we couldn’t get Jerian [Grant] a shot in the first half. He didn’t take a shot.”

On why Jerian Grant didn’t take a shot in the first half…
“I think he probably was a little overly unselfish. We got him to the foul line a couple times. I would have loved to see him drive it, maybe draw a foul. But he kicked to shooters, which were pretty good shots. So you can’t fault him altogether. Second half, he started getting in the lane a little, and that helped us. We got a couple stops and we got in transition – we didn’t have to play against the set defense as much. I think some of our younger guys struggled with the length of their zone, the first time playing against it for a long period of time.”

On how B.J. Johnson featured on the scouting report…
“He was on it because he made three threes on Saturday, but we kind of lost track of him and he made some big ones. We knew he was coming in feeling good.”

On how he knows the team will finish the season strong…
“Leadership. I think when it comes to Jerian [Grant] and Pat [Connaughton], you feel really good about their leadership and how they’ve set the tone with us. And when they’ve taken a bullet, they’ve kind of bounced back quick. I told them, `You only have four guaranteed games left. As much as they’ve loved playing together, there are only four guaranteed games left. So to really cherish the time we have together down the stretch. Those two guys have set a great tone. We’ll have to play against zone on Wednesday because they’ll press us back to zone down there at Louisville. So we’ve got to get better at that.”

On playing Bonzie Colson and Zach Auguste together…
“It’s something we’ve looked at in practice, and I think it’s something we’ve got to come back to. We’re bigger that way, we’re able to get some second shots, which we did. And Bonzie is just playing so darn well right now. It’s one of those things we went to, and I thought it helped us in the second half, playing bigger. We were better on the defensive boards and we got some second shots in the final 20 minutes. And so I think we have to get reps at that moving forward down the stretch, especially get it ready for the postseason.”

On Bonzie Colson’s performance…
“He’s amazing. He is such a gamer. He’s been amazing. I’m so proud of him, and he’s so disappointed when we lose. He’s such a team guy. I mentioned his attitude through the first 15 games when I didn’t even play him. He was so pure in cheering him teammates on. But I’ll tell you one thing, the veteran guys are really confident in him now. They want him in the game a lot, so these minutes keep creeping up for Bonzie Colson. So what was it, 19 tonight? Maybe it’ll creep to 23 down in Louisville.”

On securing the double-bye in the ACC tournament with North Carolina’s loss tonight…
“Obviously we did enough work to not play until Thursday [in the ACC tournament]. And that’s great, but we’ve got two games to improve, two games to improve your résumé – more for the NCAA tournament than really the ACC tournament.”

On how the double-bye changes the team’s mindset the last two games…
“I don’t think it changes our mindset. I think the biggest thing is how will we play after a loss? You’ll focus on that, can we bounce back after a loss? And just try and keep it in the now and not thinking ahead to who do we play Thursday, what seed are we, what bracket are we in, what does it mean for the NCAA? Just keep it to how we bounce back, and we’re going to have to attack zone Wednesday, and we’re going to have to be better. So what do we need to do, how do I help them, how do we help ourselves there? I think that keeps us away from, `OK, we’re in the top four.’ The one thing we can do is set our travel plans more specifically after tonight.”

Jerian Grant – Senior – Guard

On what to do differently with no shots in the first half …
“Be more aggressive. Against a zone, if you have a look you have to take it. In our offense we usually pass up good shots for great shots, but I think against a zone you have to take them when you are open.”

On why their zone is so difficult…
“They are long and athletic. So when you get to the basket and do attack, their hands are there so you have to kick it out for jump shots or have a contested layup. With them being athletic like that, it is tough to get to the rim. We got the looks we wanted, but we shot 3 for 22 from three, that’s not us. If we played again, we would get the same looks and we would knock them down.”

On Trevor Cooney’s corner three…
“It was huge. That’s when we were going on our run. We were ready to rebound a miss and attack like we had been doing. He hit two huge shots, so congrats to him.”

On the break to have time to improve…
“We need some practice against the zone. That is something we will definitely do going against Louisville next week. They are going to press us and get back into their match up zone “

On still being in second place in the league…
“You definitely have to think about that. It’s another loss here, but we’re moving on. There are two regular-season games left. We are looking forward to the post season.”

Bonzie Colson – Freshman – Forward

On attacking Rakeem Christmas…
“He was in foul trouble, we wanted to keep attacking him. He fouled out. We tried taking advantage of that, but they came out and got it to (Trevor) Cooney who shot well. We just could not pull away with it.”

On attacking the zone more in the second half …
“We got the rhythm of their zone. It took us a little time to get the rhythm but we found it and we kept attacking the outside of it. People rolling up to the three and that gave us a little rhythm and we started scoring from there.”

On clinching a double-bye in the ACC tournament…
“It is a great opportunity for us. We just have to take advantage of it no matter what and we have to get back to working because we have a couple days off then we have Louisville on the road. It’s going to be a tough one, so we have to put this one behind us and get ready for the next one.”

Pat Connaughton – Senior – Guard

On the key takeaways from the loss…
“We had some open looks that we didn’t knock down. I think that’s evident with the field goal percentage and three-point percentage. One thing you can take out of it is that we didn’t shoot the ball well and we need a little work against zone.”

On how to improve against the zone…
“I think you can move the ball a little faster. I think that, at times, the ball may have been moving but we were standing. When you’re standing and you aren’t close enough to the three-point line to be a threat, they really don’t have to play pressure defense and can just sit back in the zone. I think the key is getting into the gaps, being low when you catch it, and putting pressure on the zone like you do against man-to-man defense.”

On the team’s second half performance…
“One of the focuses at halftime was to try to come out and be a little more aggressive offensively. I think that we missed a few shots and a few layups that we would normally hit but at the same time you have to give them credit for making plays. (Trevor) Cooney hit those two dagger shots that enabled them to pull out the win.”

On what the team will be working on going forward…
“I think we need to work a little bit on zone. This group only has four guaranteed games left, two in the regular season, the ACC Tournament, whatever it may be. We want to get better at the things that we struggle with and I think that our defense gave us a chance to win this game, holding them to 65 points. It was just a matter of taking advantage of the offensive side of things and we need to do a better job at that because some teams are going to look at tonight’s game and say `if you play zone and they aren’t hitting shots, they don’t know how to attack it’.”

Coach Jim Boeheim

Opening Statement…
“At halftime I thought we had really lost our best chance to win the game. We made four turnovers when we were going on the fastbreak and then they scored, and on two of them, Rak[eem Christmas] got two fouls. We’re going down to score and they end up scoring, and Rak gets two fouls. To me, that was crucial. Our defense was good all night, finding their shooters. They are a really good offensive team. They’re one of the best offensive teams in the country. I think the real problem was that we gave them points off turnovers. That really hurt us, and the foul situation hurt us. We just made some mistakes, but we kept battling, we kept fighting and in the end we just wanted to use as much of the clock as we could and then get the ball to Mike [Gbinije] or Trevor [Cooney]. Trevor made a really hard three, which he has done before, and then the last two was a pretty hard one as well. B.J. [Johnson] went to the line and made the free throws when he had to. That first one-and-one was huge, and then he got to the basket and finished that one for a three-point play. B.J. was terrific tonight. He’s getting some space because they’re worried about Rak [Christmas] so much that he’s going to get a few shots and he knocked them down. He knocked them down at Boston College last game and now tonight. He was a huge difference in the game. It was a tremendous win for us. They’re a very, very good offensive team but we did a good job with our defense tonight.”

On winning despite limited minutes from Rakeem Christmas…
“I just think our defense overall was pretty good tonight. We didn’t get them comfortable and they missed threes. Notre Dame makes threes. That’s how they win. If they shoot 3-22, you should beat them. We should have played a little better. We didn’t make shots either. We missed layups. We started out the game missing two layups right off the bat. We missed a lot of opportunities, but Notre Dame shot 3-22. I hope some of that is because we’re guarding them a little bit and trying to get them off their spots. They’ve always been a great shooting team; this is nothing new. We did a good job tonight there. That was the one area where I thought we did a good job of not letting them get comfortable. We let [Pat] Connaughton get open a couple times and he made them both. They missed some for us, and that happens.”

On Rakeem Christmas scoring his 1000th point…
“He’s had a great year. He’s playing great and his contributions are just huge. He changes shots, he rebounds, he takes a beating in there every night. He’s just having a great year. We don’t have anybody to replace him. We’re small, but Notre Dame is not big either and that helps us. North Carolina just overpowered us inside. Sometimes it’s matchups. North Carolina just went inside and killed us inside. But this team has played well. We played well against Duke and North Carolina and Pittsburgh. In all the games that we’ve lost, we’ve been right there and had a good chance to win.”

On Trevor Cooney’s play…
“Somebody said that we should play Trevor less and play somebody else. He’s our second-best three-point shooter, percentage-wise. He’s leading the league in three-point field goals. So I should take him out and play a guy that’s shooting 16%? It’s easy to say: “Take Trevor Cooney out,” as long as you don’t have to make a decision about who’s going to go in. I don’t think it’s good basketball sense to put a 16% shooter in there who also has other liabilities besides that, especially when you consider that when you have Trevor in the game, there’s a guy guarding him wherever he is. That’s why we can get the ball to Rak [Christmas], that’s why Mike [Gbinije] can get that driving lane. When Trevor is out, they play off two guys. If he goes 0-5, somebody will say that he didn’t look good. He didn’t look good tonight, but luckily the Coach kept him in there, because he won the game.”

Syracuse Player Quotes

B.J Johnson – Sophomore – Forward

On this game and his run of good games…
“I’m just playing with confidence, and my teammates are playing with confidence in me as well. I think it’s just a good situation when that happens. I’m always confident in myself, but there’s always more that I can do.”

On his three-pointer that stopped a Notre Dame run…
“We hadn’t scored in a while, and they were on a run and we needed a basket. I was hitting shots earlier in the first half. I got a pick at the top of the key, and I just hit the shot.”

On the big wins the past couple of weeks…
“I think we’re better than a lot of people think because we’ve been making a lot of little mistakes towards the end of games. It’s not like we’ve been getting blown out, we’ve just lost a lot of close games. Whenever we’re playing solid, and not making those little mistakes, we’re in a pretty good situation to win the game.’

On their defensive effort…
“We did a good job of scouting them, and we knew that a lot of their points come from threes, so whenever the ball got to the high post, instead of dropping like we usually do we stayed out in the corner and made them put the ball on the floor and make tough shots.”