Nov. 24, 2013

Recap | Final Stats | Notes | Photo Gallery

Notre Dame Head Coach Mike Brey

Opening Statement…
“I liked our energy level in the second half much better than in the first half. I was disappointed in our juice in the first half. The second half was better, and we were a little more efficient offensively and made better decisions in transition. Army’s a tricky group to deal with because it’s a defensive drill for two hours. Overall we did a pretty good job of not letting them get going from beyond the three-point arc. We’re going to need two halves of energy as we move forward, so we’ve got a lot to work on before we play again next week.”

On perceived lack of energy and emotion from ND in first half…
“It’s a great question. I asked our team about that at halftime. We had a chance to play again and win another game after getting beaten a week ago. That’s what I was most disappointed with. We don’t have the most vibrant personalities, and we do have some quiet guys. But that really starts with our leadership to get guys ready to go. Even when we substituted, that didn’t really help our energy level in the first half.”

On ND’s strong bench play…
“The one thing we were able to do today is play a lot of different combinations together. I’m certainly still learning about our team and probably will be for a while. We got to play a lot of different guys out there together. It’s interesting to evaluate and still keep trying to figure it out.”

On Austin Burgett’s early foul troubles…
“I think he’s going to have to be smarter. He’s getting so many cheap ones with the new hand-check rule. I believe he’s quick enough to move his feet on these guys. I don’t think he needs to put his arm out. It was one of those days for him where everything went down the tubes. Every guy that took a shot on him made it, he turned it over a couple of times, and he lost a rebound. Maybe everybody I start in that spot can’t handle it, so we’ll just keep trying guys until someone can handle it. But we’re going to need him, and he’s important to us. I would like to keep him on the floor for us.”

On young Irish players playing together in final five minutes…
“That has been the team in blue shirts most of the season. What I loved was Demetrius Jackson was firmly running that team and being really vocal. They’re comfortable playing together as you can see, since they do that in practice. It’s a group that we’re going to count on both this year and in our future. It was good to see Zach [Auguste] around the bucket posting and getting some baskets and rebounds. V.J. [Beachem] and Steve [Vasturia] just getting in and getting a feel for it was important. Even though those two guys haven’t gotten the chance to be a part of it yet, I think their time is coming, so they just need to keep working.”

Notre Dame Player Quotes

Garrick Sherman – Senior – Center

On making adjustments after a slow first half…
“We just came out with more of a sense of urgency. We started off kind of slow. We coasted a little bit, and Coach got on us and fired us up. And we came out and played a lot harder in the second half.”

On getting matchups down low…
“The guards just gave me some great passes. It was one of those days where I was finding open spots and they did a great job finding me.”

On responding to Coach Brey’s challenge after the Indiana State game…
“Just be more physical. Be more under control. I think that’s one thing that I tried to do the last two games, and going forward too.”

On regaining confidence…
“I don’t think it was confidence – just more of the technical part of it. Just taking my time, being more under control. Confidence has always been there, and I’m looking forward to taking advantage of it.”

Zach Auguste – Sophomore – Forward

On playing with the underclassmen at the end of the game…
“It was fun for us as a group to go out there and see how we play together.”

On providing a spark off the bench…
“I know we would like some energy, so I wanted to come in there. That’s mostly my role – come in there as an energy guy, so I wanted to come in there and rebound, score, whatever I can do.”

On how his hand is feeling…
“I had the glove off and everything. It’s 100 percent.”

On how to carry over a good performance to more games…
“I guess you just have to stop worrying about scoring and everything, and go in and focus on little things, like learning the flow of rebounding, and from there you can move on.”

Eric Atkins – Senior – Guard

On the slow offensive start…
“I think it starts in the beginning. We didn’t do a good job defensively. I think it always starts defensively for us. They were getting to the hoop the entire first half and that kind of affects our offense. If we’re not playing well on that end, it always carries over to the offensive end, and we’re just sloppy and look disinterested. I think that’s the main thing – cleaning up our defense.”

On the lack of energy on the court…
“I know at halftime Coach Brey got on us about not showing energy, and not being the most excited to play today. I think we did turn it around though in the second half. I’m not really sure what it is going to take for us to turn that around in the first half, but we’re going to have to against a better team.”

Demetrius Jackson – Freshman – Guard

On how the team played…
“I think we moved the ball really well. We just tried to work hard and compete. We just try to get better week by week.”

On the win…
“They’re a great team and they were great competitors. As you could see, we worked hard all week and worked ourselves up all week and got better.”

Jerian Grant – Senior – Guard

On picking up the energy…
“Once you hear that from Coach Brey, who really doesn’t yell a lot, and you hear him upset, it definitely gets us a little energized.”

On the win…
“A lot of guys were contributing. We’re going to need this next Sunday, and then on the road at Iowa. We’re going to need guys contributing because it’s going to be a big game for us. As long as we keep playing well, going into the game, I think it will be good for us.”

Army Head Coach Zach Spiker

Opening Statement…
“I think when you look at the game from our standpoint and come into this venue playing on the road against what will be a top-25 program, we know we need to do a couple things very well. We need to get the right looks for the right guys. We have to take care of the basketball. We have to win the rebounding battle and we have to be very effective in transition. Transition goes both ways. Can we stop them in transition and limit their easy looks, and can we get ourselves some good looks in transition? For the most part in the game we competed in terms of rebounding but we didn’t take care of the ball, which puts us in a hole in the transition game. That led to a number of easy looks and that’s why we saw their shooting percentage extremely high in the second half. A couple quick looks and a couple quick turnovers.”

On three point shooting…
“We put a premium on that. We recruited that and built around it. If the ball doesn’t go in, it takes an element away to our team and how we can be successful, but it doesn’t limit us. We’ve been good because we’ve defended at a high rate. How the threes fall is not a complete indicator of whether we are going to win or lose. A better indicator is rebounding and transition, and we didn’t do that today. If you take those turnovers and they end up being a couple mid range jump shots instead of a turnover, your three point percentage isn’t going to change but you may make a shot and stop their runs. That’s a very talented team and they can play a couple ways. They have a tremendous coach to lead them and that’s why they are good and are going to be good.

On Garrick Sherman…
“I thought he did a good job getting around. It’s always difficult to score over guys at any level but he did a good job getting around and doing some things. He got some easy buckets. To his credit, he got the ball where he could score and made plays.”

Army Player Quotes

Dylan Cox – Sophomore – Guard

On turnovers…
“I don’t know if it was anything they were doing. They were pressuring the ball pretty well but it was all on us. We were making uncharacteristic turnovers, things that we usually don’t do. We weren’t meeting our passes, and we weren’t taking care of the ball [while] dribbling.”

On playing at Notre Dame…
“It was a really great opportunity. Obviously, they’re a great team, and a great school, so we were blessed to have the opportunity to play at Notre Dame today.”

Larry Toomey – Sophomore – Forward

On team’s three point shooting…
“We’re going to keep shooting them because we’re confident and if we hit four more threes that game is right there. I just think we have to keep shooting even though were not hitting them right now and we have to keep in mind that when were not hitting them we have to keep going to the basket hard.”

On team’s rebounding…
“We were taking some uncharacteristic shots. Some long threes and long rebounds and that led to their run outs.”

On playing at Notre Dame…
“It was a pretty cool experience. It’s kind of cool because we come from a school with a lot of tradition too. To come here and see some other traditions and get used to that was pretty cool it was cool to play some high competition too.”