Nov. 24, 2003

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Coach Brey Quotes

Q: Comment on your first win of the season:
A: We played a great team tonight, they played really hard tonight. Northern Illinois has a lot of bodies they can throw at you and they usually shoot very well from the three-point line, however tonight they struggled from there.

Q: You have wanted the team to establish a defensive identity, how do you feel they did tonight?
A: We went after them right from the get-go, they only shot 33% from the floor. We gave up too many second shots but we covered them well on the three-point line.

Q: Comment on Torin Francis’ game tonight:
A: I talked to him before the game and I wanted him to make a statement tonight about being the leading rebounder in the country this year. That is one of his goals for the year. He is getting better and better at kicking the ball out to his teammates to avoid traffic in the lane.

Q: Tell us about your concerns for tonight’s game and the opening games of the season.
A: I knew they had a great program and would test us tonight. We came out ready to play tonight and they could not find a rhythm offensively. However, they did a great job on us in the second half defensively.

Q: Comment on Chris Quinn and his game tonight.
A: He has been the stat leader for us all week in practice. We talked last night at dinner about his role on the team and the need for him to be more aggressive from the field, which he did tonight. He also played great defense tonight and growing into his role on the starting five.

Northern Illinois Head Coach Rob Judson Quotes

On Notre Dame’s team…
“I think Notre Dame has a terrific team. They have great balance at every position and work really hard on their inside-outside game. I was extremely impressed with Mike (Brey)’s team. Notre Dame should have an outstanding year. Tonight was a great opportunity and a good challenge to play here at Notre Dame.

On Northern Illinois’ strategy…
“Our strategy was to play everyone in the first half. We felt depth was an issue for Notre Dame. We just had some turnover trouble; we had nine in the first, but cut it down to three in the second half. Our defense picked it up and got us back in the game. I felt if we would have gone to the line more, it would have been closer.”

On Northern Illinois’ three-point shooting…
“Normally, we are a good three-point shooting team, but we were only four of 17 tonight. Todd Peterson shot 40% last year, but he didn’t have any three’s tonight.”

On Northern Illinois’ rebounding…
“We are a good rebounding team. A focus of our team tonight was to improve our rebounding from the first game where our opponent had 25 rebounds. I am glad to see we got back on track.”