Nov. 17, 2012
Recap | Box Score | Notes | Photo Gallery 
Notre Dame Head Coach Mike Brey
On tonight’s performance:
“I am very proud of our team because we invested a lot of energy last night (vs. St. Joseph’s) and had our hearts broken. We were moping around a little bit today, rightfully so, and I thought by pregame meal we had our heads up. I’m impressed with our maturity because we were in a battle and were down seven in the second half and to find a way to get out of here with a win I’m proud of our group. Even though we didn’t go 4-0 in this, we went 3-1, I think we found out some more about our team.”
On switching to a zone defense midway through the second half:
“There’s no question with 14 minutes to go, down seven, that going to zone helped us because we had a hard time guarding them in man-to-man. This group really does play well together on both sides of the floor. We have been getting more reps at our 2-3 zone and we did a really good job. I was afraid to play it most of the game because of (BYU’s) shooters, but when you’re down seven with 14 minutes to go, you are either going to play it and come back, or play it and loose by 15. It doesn’t matter, there’s nothing to lose.”
Notre Dame Player Quotes
On how he handled adversity against BYU compared to Saint Joseph’s:
“Being poised mentally, yesterday when I missed shots I got frustrated and that messed my whole game up. I talked to Coach Brey and the guys and they told me to just keep my confidence and my poise. It’s definitely tough but the guys on the bench and the coach’s just keep telling me to have confidence in myself and stay ready.”
On the team’s performance against BYU compared to Saint Joseph’s:
“We just stayed poised and Jerian did a great job of attacking off the ball screen. I think (Jerian) really got everyone involved and he got himself going driving to the hoop. So I just think we stayed poised and kept doing what we do.”
On Jack Cooley’s performance:
“Jack is huge. Whenever we need a bucket or need to get the offense going we throw it in to him and he seems to be able to make a play somehow or grab a big rebound.”
Brigham Young Head Coach Dave Rose
On team’s performance:
“I think our players and our coaches feel fortunate that we were able to participate in the tournament and I think that if you ask all of our guys they are disappointed in the outcome of the game. I think that it was a good learning experience for us–we a have a lot of work to do to get better, it’s early in the year. I thought tonight we competed a lot better, I thought we had the game kind of how we wanted in the second half, but then Notre Dame did what they do. They made the possessions really long, they executed really well, hit their free throws and they turned us over. They kind of locked us up there for a few minutes and that was the story of the game. We just have to get home and get better.”
On Brandon Davies foul trouble:
“I will tell you early in the year that when you coach for basically 80 minutes, two games, and are in foul situations you don’t have the team in there that you want to have whether it is based on strategy, time, score or you’re substituting based on the results of officials calls. It makes it difficult and we have to be smarter in our ability to not foul and stay on the floor, but I think that was probably the most frustrating thing of the two games the fact that we were shuffling line-ups back and forth.”
On Ian Harward’s performance:
“I think that’s probably one of the positives of the two nights the fact that we had some guys come in and get some minutes that we are going to really need soon. You know we keep talking about how we need to increase the depth of our team and that needs to happen fairly quickly here. We can’t keep waiting for guys to come in and play well. Ian was really good tonight with the minutes he got. It will be a learning curve for him as well. Those were the best eleven minutes he played to date so that’s good.”
On Ian Harward and Josh Sharp match-ups:
“The depth of our team especially our post right now– we lost a couple of guys early in the year and they were both basically inside guys for us. Then Nate Austin sprained his ankle last night resulting in limited minutes tonight, but I think he did well with the minutes he got. We were challenged; we needed Brandon to play more than 18 minutes tonight. Hopefully we can figure that out.”
On playing more consistently:
“I think there are quite a few things we can learn from this tournament. Most of them are things we need to correct because I don’t think we played our best basketball here tonight and I think that in crucial possessions we need to execute better. We need to take advantage of opportunities we have. When we got that seven point lead the very next possession, they come down and we get a miss. We then end up without the rebound, I think that Jack Cooley ends up tipping that ball around and getting the rebound and then they end up hitting the shot. These are game winning possessions where you get the miss and you need to get that rebound and build on that lead. Instead of coming out with the ball with seven, we come out with five and then they have a little momentum. Those are the type of things that hurt us, we will learn from this. There are a lot of things we need to do. It’s not all on one guy. We need better point guard play, we need better post-play and we need better wing play. When we get better at those three spots, our team will get better.”