Nov. 19, 2009

Recap | Box Score | Notes | AP Gallery

Notre Dame Head Coach Mike Brey
On the second half defensive effort…
“That was a BIG EAST game tonight with their speed and quickness. I’m proud of our defensive effort in the second half.”

On other players stepping up…
“We don’t have a selfish group. It’s great when you count on your defensive group when they can rotate over and they can help and take a charge. They turned us over early, but overall I thought we did a good job.”

On Hansbrough’s injuries…
“He is one tough guy; there is no question about that. That was one heck of a fall. We just got to get him healthy for Sunday. I think as a group right now we are in a good place. We are pretty physically and mentally tough. In the second half we showed our mental toughness and our maturity.”

On Tim Abromaitis stepping up…
“He’s getting more confidence, and I feel confident in him and his teammates are confident in him as well. I told him the other day he could develop into a starter the way he has been playing.”

On the next step…
“I think we have to understand difference between a half court offense and how to slow down a little bit.”

On players getting the day off tomorrow…
“I told them we have two games this week before we go over to Chicago. It’s good that we are playing a lot. We are going to have a little bit of recovery time before we suit it up on Sunday. We need to see if we can get better this week.”

Notre Dame Players
Luke Harangody – Senior – Forward
On what this win means to the team…
“A lot of people do not realize this right now but (Long Beach State) is a good team. For us to come out and win by twenty, this is a big win for us confidence-wise before we head up to Chicago. “

On if he liked what he saw from the team tonight…
“It was kind of like a BIG EAST game. In the first half they were hitting shots and getting it to rain. In the second half we came out and showed that we are the better team, and when we needed to put them away we did.”

On the Notre Dame’s energy level coming into the second half…
“At halftime we came into the locker room and talked about a couple of things and about what they were doing out there. We knew that we could exploit them a little bit and try to get the ball down into the post. It was just a matter of time before we got it out of the gates.”

On Tory Jackson’s ability to get him the ball…
“Obviously, Tory is a great facilitator of our offense. We work real well on a ball screen. I think we play very well together.”

On his play in the paint…
“The whole game I thought I had an advantage down low. I missed a lot of easy shots too and I feel like I was kind of rushing things. In the second half I relaxed a little bit and was able to put it in. “

On how Notre Dame was able to take over the game in the second half…
“I think we just came out strong. This team is starting to realize that we can be a very confident team. Guys like me, Tory and John (Peoples) realize that but these younger guys like Tyrone (Nash) and Tim Abromaitis and Carlton (Scott) are starting to realize that too, and that’s where we are starting to get scary.”

Tory Jackson – Senior – Guard
On if he liked being tested in a game like this…
“I love this. This game felt like it had a BIG EAST atmosphere. That team is very good and they are going to beat a lot of teams this year down the road. This game was huge for us to kind of show us who we are and raise the bar a little bit for us. We knew coming into this game that they were a great team and they had a lot of guys match with. But in the end this game was about us. We always talk in the locker room about who we are as a team and today we kind of took another step toward realizing our full potential. We take another step day-by-day, game by game.”

On if he enjoys playing this many games in such a short period early in the year…
“I love it. You want to get out and continue to play. You know, we are a young team. We have a lot of young guys out there. Our freshmen coming off the bench helping us out, we have young legs so there should be no complaining about playing this many games. This is what we signed up for and we are having fun with it. We have to get prepared for our next game starting tomorrow.”

Tyrone Nash – Junior – Forward
On what Coach Brey talked about during halftime in the locker room…
“Coach talked about us needing to come out in the second half and break this game open. We needed to get a little tempo and a lead, and we executed our plan and we are happy with the result.”

On how he feels the team plays together…
“I think everybody contributes and everyone is ready to play, even during the last two minutes. That’s why I love this team, no matter what time it is in the game, everybody is ready to go.”

Long Beach State Head Coach Dan Monson
Opening Statement…
“I’ve got a lot of respect for this program. It’s the chance of a lifetime for our kids. It’s a great experience for them. I’m disappointed; I’m not shocked, but I’m disappointed in how we responded at halftime. Letting them take control of the game that easily was probably the most disappointing thing. We are a young team, but they’re not. There are those four sophomores who came in and played a lot of minutes last year, and I, as a coach, get impatient and just tell them to grow up. We’re doing a lot of good things, and I hate to say anything negative about us because it’s Notre Dame. Really I think we’re a better defensive team than that. The difference in the game in my opinion was coming out in the second half and them turning up the pressure and us not being able to handle it. We turned over the ball twelve times in the second half.”

On handling Notre Dame guard Ben Hansbrough…
“They’ve got awfully good players. At this level, these guys aren’t one-trick ponies. He’s not just a standing shooter. He bounced the ball, and he hurt us. Obviously we were playing the on-balls different with Harangody and we weren’t going to leave him. They adjusted that at halftime and did a good job. They just kept on-balling it and were able to penetrate off of him. We didn’t want to give him the baseline, but those two were awfully good. We couldn’t handle the on-ball that way, and we had to start trapping it.”