Nov. 23, 2013

Recap | Box Score | Photo Gallery

Notre Dame Head Coach Mike Brey

Opening Statement…
“First of all, I think Santa Clara played really well. We felt we ran into another team that can shoot the ball. I really like their young guards. Those two are going to be really good. It was a tough one for us. They put pressure on us the whole way. A lot of different guys played, and we had to play small because they were difficult to guard, but I’m happy with how we played tonight. The crowd was great. What a great crowd on a Friday night. That really helped us feel the energy in this building. Hopefully they get some brunch and we’ll see them Sunday at 2 o’clock.

On the tempo of the game…
“They were hard to guard, especially when we had two big guys running the floor. We rode it for a while but then they hit a three and then we realized we were going to have to play zone. In the second half, I was so worried about three point shots, and so we just played smaller and switched a lot on the perimeter. I thought tonight the foul line was going to be a key. We got to the foul line more than we had been and 23 for 27 was pretty good from the line.”

On hitting the three’s and rebounding well…
“I thought Austin [Burgett] played well and we saw the college welcoming party for Demetrius Jackson. He was comfortable out on the floor. He gave us great energy and he can really build on this because he is such a key for us.”

On Austin Burgett
“We started him in the second half. He had 10 rebounds and was active and all over the place. He’s giving us really big minutes. He’s another guy like Demetrius that can really grow. I also thought Zach [Auguste] in the first half was key for us. The three guys off the bench gave us really good energy tonight, and certainly Austin [Burgett] was key for us.”

On Jerian Grant
“I thought his shot selection was good. He shot very steady and our two guards both had five assists. What I was impressed with were the in-the-box situations where we had Demetrius (Jackson) making decisions and I thought he made great decisions coming off ball screens.”

On the next game against Army…
“We had a team that made 11 threes and we had a team that made 10 threes tonight. Army is a team this year that put up 44 three point shots in a game. We’re probably going to have to get smaller and switch some stuff. This is an important stretch for us after a tough loss Sunday. We came back and won tonight and we have to get into practice tomorrow and prepare to play well on Sunday.”

Notre Dame Player Quotes

Eric Atkins – Senior – Guard

On the transition period between Indiana State and Santa Clara…
“It took forever. For the last couple days I’ve been getting questions about Indiana State. It felt great to finally get back on the floor and get another win under our belt.”

On the sluggish performance at the beginning of the game…
“Nothing was that easy tonight. They [Santa Clara] knocked down some contested shots early, but we also made every shot contested–that was the biggest difference for us since last Sunday.”

On Austin Burgett
“He always comes in the game with a lot of energy, and he can space the floor. He’s very athletic as well, and can guard bigger guys.”

Demetrius Jackson – Freshman – Guard

On the energy of the team…
“I feel like we have the same amount of energy regardless of who is out there. We definitely want to bring the same energy regardless of who is in the game. Having a little more speed on the court definitely helped us out tonight.”

On why he had a successful night…
“My teammates and coaches did a great job of motivating me. I got the rebounds and the coaches were telling me to just let it out tonight. I got motivated and I had that three point play and I just let it out.”

On preparing for this game…
“We had a tough week of practice, as we always do, but we definitely challenged ourselves a little more to be better and we hope to continue to challenge ourselves to keep improving.”

On taking baby steps early in his college career…
“I want to be patient. It doesn’t come overnight. You have to work hard and continue to work hard throughout the whole season and it will come to you. Taking baby steps is a good thing. I want to get better and become a better player.”

Garrick Sherman – Senior – Center

On the week between Indiana State and Santa Clara…
“It felt like a few months, it was miserable, but it was good to bounce back and now we are looking forward to Army on Sunday.”

On Austin Burgett
“He is relentless, the way he attacks the basketball, and he moves without the ball really well. He does everything well, there isn’t anything Austin doesn’t do well. We know Burgett will be an awesome player for us. There is no doubt about it.”

On the challenge of team bouncing back from this loss…
“We have veteran leaders. Guys will be ready. At the end of the day, it’s just one loss, and we’ve got a lot of basketball left to play.”

Austin Burgett – Sophomore – Forward

On defining his role on the team…
“My role is just to play hard, get guys open, get on the boards, and do what I need to do. My main focus is to rebound, get the guys the ball and get them open.”

On bringing energy onto the court…
“I look to and come off the bench and be the guy that my team needs. I’m trying to instill some energy and the get the game flowing better.”

On the focus in practice this week…
“I would say that our main focus was for the big guys like me, [Garrick] Sherman, Tom [Knight], and Zach [Auguste] to get on the offensive glass, and I felt we did a lot better with that this game. Getting on the offensive glass is important because it helps us then get on the defensive glass and get us into a defensive mind.”

Jerian Grant – Senior – Guard

On team flow on the court…
“It’s a little bit difficult to get a flow going but as the season goes on we’ll learn how to play with all different types of players on the court.”

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Santa Clara Head Coach Kerry Keating

Opening Statement…
“When you’re playing on the road in the ACC, every little opportunity counts, so the missed ones really hurt, like early in the second half during a couple of their runs. For the most part, we took care of the ball, but even those turnovers–the nine of them–were heightened because you’re playing in a tight game where every possession counts and we didn’t capitalize. I think [senior forward] Jerry Brown had a layup out of a timeout to cut it to seven and we just didn’t capitalize. It’s hard with a young team because young teams get so energized with every single play, when you have something like that that doesn’t go your way it’s easy for them to get deflated. I don’t think we necessarily got deflated, but I think it just took us off kilter a little bit.”

On senior guard Evan Roquemore’s increased role tonight…
“He played a lot more than I expected him to play. He hasn’t practiced in a month–he’s been out for five weeks–but he’s done a good job rehabbing his disk issues in the L4/L5 vertebrae, which will be a touch and go thing all year long. Obviously I didn’t think we’d have to play him that much but he was doing a pretty good job–maybe a little itchy on his part, trying to really get himself fully back, and he took about two bad shots. But we don’t have a margin for error right now and I know he wants to do the right thing and help out as our only returning guy who’s played significant minutes in his career here. I thought for the most part that he did a fairly good job though.”

On the importance of the team’s three-point shooting…
“It’s always been important to us–we have the fourth all-time leading three-point shooter in NCAA history; we’ve led the country in three’s before, so we obviously have good shooters and in particular; we have a really good freshman, Jared Brownridge, who got going early in this game; and we probably need to make sure that we keep getting him shots when he’s in that mode. But he’s still learning too. For a guy like that to come in here and play 35 minutes and really shoulder some of that load is pretty exceptional and he’s got a bright future ahead of him. But even still, little things can be on full display in cases like that, making little mistakes on a cut to get him open, stuff like that. It’s a process for all of us, especially me, to keep building this thing and keep moving it forward. I like where we’re headed, we’re just going to have to take our lumps along the way and learn the hard way, and unfortunately, today we learned the hard way from a very good NCAA tournament team.”

Santa Clara Player Quotes

Brandon Clark – Junior – Guard

On working with a young team…
“Every game is a learning experience for us: we’re still getting used to playing with the new guys. We have people stepping into new, bigger roles, like myself. This is the first game where we’ve had one of our senior stars back, Evan Roquemore, so the new guys are getting used to playing with him. We’re just learning after each game and staying positive. It’s a long season.”

On the team’s three-point shooting efforts…
“It’s just the flow, and the opportunity of whatever the defense gives us. I wouldn’t say it’s a point of emphasis to go out there and shoot threes, but if it’s open for me and my teammates, we’re ready to knock them down.”

On trying to come back against a veteran team like Notre Dame…
“We’re a young team, a couple of our younger guys got down, but we picked them back up. Notre Dame is a great ball club, an older team, a senior and junior led team, and they made us pay. But we learned from that; if things don’t go our way, we got to stay strong, and work on the defensive end to get it back.”

Jared Brownridge – Freshman – Guard

On Notre Dame’s five Guard lineup…
“They’re all quick and explosive guards–I played against some of them in AAU and knew they were really good. It was hard to stay in front of them sometimes. They were able to get to the basket. They’re respectable guards and they’re all really good.”

On competing against Notre Dame…
“Its an ACC team. It’s a school that everybody wants to play at some point in their life. We just came out here and battled. We’re going to go back to the drawing board and prepare for the next game.”

On having senior guard Evan Roquemore back…
“It was great to have our main senior back. He’s been out for a while just going through rehab. It’s been a struggle not seeing him practice, so I was happy to see him come back for this game. I think the whole team was happy and I thought we battled tonight.”