Nov. 21, 2012

Recap | Box Score | Photo Gallery

Notre Dame Head Coach Mike Brey

Thoughts on the game…
“I love how we defended. We guarded them and held them to 21 (points) in the first half and I think we were really efficient offensively. You felt like you didn’t shoot it as well because you didn’t make threes but we really did shoot it well and we were very efficient. Garrick (Sherman) needed a game like that. He really needed a game to bounce back from when he didn’t play as well as he wanted to in New York. He gave us a good lift off the bench. It was a good win for us and we’ll turn around and get going again tomorrow.”

How different Garrick Sherman is when he has a good start…
“It takes some pressure off us when he can come in and score like that. The things we’ve been talking about with him the last few days is slowing down and keeping it simpler around the basket. Sometimes he gets overly crafty. Sometimes he adds a degree of difficulty so I said ‘keep it simple.’ He was fortunate tonight they didn’t double him so he was able to go with a nice pace. And as good as he was offensively he was as good defensively. Walling up their big guys, rotating over and putting his body on people. So good for him, he needed that.”

On Garrick Sherman not needing to shoot every time he gets the ball…
“Well, when he’s one-on-one like that I think we want him to go to work. I thought in New York he stepped through some semi-crowds or double-teams and that wasn’t the best for us.”

On George Washington having some good down-low looks and if he was happy defensively…
“I thought we came over and had bodies on people but they missed some easy shots early that probably would have given them a little more confidence. We’re doing a good job of rotating over and our big guys of keeping post guys at least from burying us too much. Now that’s going to be tested when you’re playing some more physical teams but if we can be a good position defensive team, that’s what we have to be and not let them get second shots, we really didn’t do that. We ran a little bit, we got a couple buckets early but in the second half our efficiency was really good and our low post touches were good.”

On how Jerian Grant has bounced back the last few games…
“Maybe a little calmer, not putting the weight of the world on missed shots. I think for him when he missed some shots up until the second half of BYU, he had the weight of the world on him and we let that affect the rest of them. He’s come a long way of being able to flush that and defend and also drive it. We want him driving the ball, I like the way he’s driving the ball for us.”

Notre Dame Players Quotes

Garrick Sherman, Senior, Center

On his performance…
“I was just trying to take what was there instead of trying to predetermine my move.”

On not needing to look to score every time he touches the ball…
“I think that’s just a bad habit of not playing consistent minutes so when I get in I’m just in that mode where I’m trying to force things that weren’t necessarily there. I was just trying to be patient and be efficient and I did a fairly decent job of that.”

On how their legs felt after playing two games over the weekend…
“I think we were okay. Coach Brey does a great job of getting us ready and giving us time off to get rest. I think we were okay, I don’t think it was a glaring weakness or anything like that.”

On George Washington’s length…
“They’re typically an A-10 team that’s athletic, that plays hard, that does some things well.”

On the physicality of the game…
“Yeah, well that’s typical. I don’t mind it and I think we handled it pretty well tonight.”

Jack Cooley, Senior, Forward

On George Washington’s size…
“They’ve got a lot of big guys. It’s good for us for the BIG EAST days against Georgetown and Syracuse that have four guys out there that are at least 6’7″ so we’ve got to learn how to play against that size now.”

On where the team is right now…
“I think we’re still developing and the sign of that was when we got up by 16 and then we didn’t push it, we didn’t extend it and we let them get it down to near single digits. That was just a sign of us not being quite all the way there. There were times last year where we got it all together where we would just push that out and it wouldn’t be close again. We just need to improve on things, it just takes a little time.”

On how his legs felt after the back-to-back games from last weekend…
“(They feel) pretty good. It is what it is. I just need to rest a little bit and get out there and do it again on Saturday.”

On how he responded to his poor first half with a very good second half…
“Today coach (Brey) was trying to feel out a little more of people playing and getting a few more rotations in there. I put it on myself that I didn’t really have the best first half and I needed to come out there and have a strong start to the second half and that’s what I thought I did. It was just trying to go out there and play well.”

Eric Atkins, Junior, Guard

On the poor free throw shooting…
“I just think we’re going to get going on the free throws so I’m really not that concerned.”

On how he got his high rebound total…
“I really had no clue I had that many (eight) rebounds. I think those were just a lot of tip balls and stuff but coach (Brey) told me to crash the bounds because everyone else had really big guys they were boxing out against and I could just come in there and steal a few so that made it easier for me.”

On what ways he thinks the team can improve on…
“I still think we’re finding ourselves on the offensive side of the ball. I still think we have a lot of room to grow. Defensively, we’re just going to keep trying to build and keep getting stops. Offensively, I still think everyone is trying to find their niche and Garrick (Sherman) gave us a great boost of the bench today. To keep getting contributions from the bench is huge for us.”

On how they stopped Joe McDonald…
“We just really tried to stay in front of him. From the tapes we watched of him, he really tried to drive the ball hard. I think I stayed in front of him pretty much the whole game and did a good job at it.”

On how nice it is to beat an A-10 team after losing two in a row to A-10 competition…
“Definitely (was nice). Going 0-2 in the past year against Atlantic-10 teams stays on my mind. Before we hit the court, Coach Brey said ‘let’s go get a win against an A-10 team’ and that’s what we did.”

George Washington Head Coach Mike Lonergan

On having trouble against Notre Dame’s big men…
“They were a lot of trouble. We were really worried about (Jack) Cooley. I guess we weren’t familiar enough with (Garrick) Sherman, but he manhandled us. In the first half, when the game was lost, they went to them and we couldn’t stop it. It was pretty disappointing. I thought we did a pretty good job of getting the ball, but we couldn’t score inside. Our three post players combined were 6-15, 3-9 and 2-10. I give them (Notre Dame) credit. They are big and even though they block some shots, they are more position defenders. We just didn’t match up physically.”

On having a lot of good looks…
“We have trouble shooting the ball from outside, but usually we make some of those. (Kevin) Larsen in particular, missed some lay-ups and I don’t know if it was nerves at the beginning or contagious. We just missed so many shots it was hard to stay in the game even with the good shots. Then we started taking some bad shots.”