Jan. 14, 2006
Providence vs. Notre Dame
Saturday, January 14, 2006
Notre Dame Head Coach Mike Brey Quotes
On Kyle McAlarney hitting three straight three-pointers at the end of the first half …
“That was huge. I think he may have been disappointed that he didn’t start in BIG EAST play with how well he’s been playing. But I thought he did a great job at bouncing back and I thought we’d start him in the second half tonight. He’s really a talented kid.”
On breaking the game open with easy baskets after breaking the press …
“We really did a good job at handling the ball. Of course when you have Kyle (McAlarney), Chris Quinn and Colin Falls on the perimeter and then a big guy like (Rob) Kurz and (Luke) Zeller who are really good at handling the ball it makes it nice. I also thought Ryan Ayers gave us good minutes. His basketball IQ is very high.”
On Chris Quinn’s night …
“He put the pressure on himself this week kind of like he did before we went to Alabama. We were backed up against it then too and I thought he did a great job at setting the tone with those guys.”
On the strength of the BIG EAST …
“We’re 1-3 in the BIG EAST. I said this after we were 0-3, I love my team. I love our team, I think we are getting better. Whenever we get smacked around, we bounce right back.”
Notre Dame vs. Providence
January 14, 2005
Notre Dame Player Quotes
Senior Guard Chris Quinn
On ND’s big lead…
“There towards the end of the second half, when we were up 18 or 20 points, it was good to look up at the scoreboard and see us in the 90s. We got some stops on the defensive end and did what we needed to do to win. It’s always good to get a few minutes there on the end of the bench and watch some of these other guys go in and have a little fun.”
On the game…
“That was a big win for us. Every night in the BIG EAST is a battle.”
Senior Forward Torin Francis On ND’s first BIG EAST win… “We knew it wasn’t going to be given to us. We had to earn it. We are not satisfied. We still want to win the league, and we have a lot of work to do, and we almost have a week to prepare for Marquette. That will give us time to get ready, to get some rest and to get our second win.”
Freshman Guard Kyle McAlarney
On his play…
“I just try to come out and be confident, help my team the best way I can, and play tough defense. Coach [Brey] told me to just go out there and have fun. He said, ‘You have done this a million times.’ Tonight I felt really good out there, I felt really comfortable, and Colin [Falls] and Chris [Quinn] are so easy to play with.”
On being a guard in the BIG EAST…
“Opponents key on Colin [Falls] and Chris [Quinn] so much, because they have been here for a couple of years, and they are lead players in our league. It just helps me so much more because I got a weight lifted off my shoulders, coming from high school where everybody was keying on me. Now I am getting a couple of open looks.”
Notre Dame vs. Providence
Providence Player Quotes
January 14, 2006
Freshman Forward Weyinmi Efejuku
On momentum shift…
“I think Jonathan Kale got a block. That was pretty big, but we didn’t capitalize on it. They [Notre Dame] got the loose ball and hit a three, and that sparked their run. If we would have done that, capitalized on that play, it could have been a different outcome.”
On the BIG EAST…
“The BIG EAST is tough this year. I think it’s the best conference in the country. I think every night, you never know who’s going to win what game. You can’t look at a game and say, ‘Ok, they’re definitely going to win.’ West Virginia beat Villanova – nobody thought that would happen. Games like that happen every night. It’s tough top to bottom.”
Freshman Guard Sharaud Curry
On the play of Notre Dame…
“They came out aggressive all night. They made a lot of shots. They made a lot of three-pointers. We were in it for a while. There was a key stretch in the first half, towards the end of the half, when we played defense as well as we could have, and that’s when they got up by 11, and then they just controlled the game from that point. They kept knocking down shots. They played good.”
On the BIG EAST…
“It’s a tough conference – probably one of the toughest in the country. Every night we play, we know it’s going to be a tough game. We just have to be prepared, every time we go out to play.”
Providence vs. Notre Dame
Saturday, January 14, 2006
Providence Head Coach Tim Welsh Quotes
Opening statement …
“It was a pretty impressive performance by Notre Dame offensively. They have shown all season long they can really get out and score and if you don’t guard the line they can really rack up the points very quickly. Tonight they did and we didn’t do a good job in the first half getting to them. They were in a great offensive rhythm. Both halves pretty much mirrored each other. In the second half, they were a step ahead of us because we were chasing them.
“They are a team that you really have to get down and dirty with defensively, because if you relax at all they can burn you quick. [Chris] Quinn has had an outstanding year and tonight he was pretty much unguardable. We tried a lot of different things against him with no success.”
On the next game vs. West Virginia …
“This league, last time I looked, I didn’t see any easy games, home or away. We’ve got such a young team and just have to get better. Every game has to be a learning experience until we find a win. Hopefully we are building some confidence.”
On the young team …
“As a coach, your patience is tested with some of the young mistakes out there. I promised myself this year that I was going to coach a different way than I normally do, still be demanding but also understand that these kids are young and we’re going to go with them until they get it. And once we do get over that hump, I think we’ll be good. This is not a good spot to start to try to get better. This league is unforgiving, they are all tough.
“They are getting a taste of how good this conference is, you can’t relax. Sometimes the young kids in high school, they don’t understand that a guy can maybe shoot from 22 or 23 feet. This isn’t high school, this is BIG EAST where every player, even guys coming off the bench, can play.”
On the low scoring by the team’s leading scorers…
“They did a good job on Donny [McGrath], he gets their best looks every time. It wasn’t about [offensive] points tonight. I don’t care who our leading scorer is, we have to stop people. If we hold Notre Dame to 76 points instead of 92, we win. That was the problem. If we got our average today, we still wouldn’t have won the game.”