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NCAA MEN'S 2ND & 3RD ROUNDS: PITTSBURGH

March 21, 2015

Steve Vasturia

PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA

NOTRE DAME - 67
BUTLER - 64

MODERATOR: From Notre Dame, we have head coach Mike Brey, student-athletes Jerian Grant and Steve Vasturia. Opening statement from Coach Brey. Coach?

COACH BREY: What a magnificent college game. I'm just so proud of our group. We've been in those situations many times where we're down in the second half, compared it a little bit to the North Carolina game last Saturday. We dug ourselves out. Our defense helped us escape in timely, clutch, big offensive plays was also a key. I feel I should address at this time, I lost my mother this morning to a heart attack, and it was kind of a tribute to her. It was really a special night. She's 84, a former Olympic swimmer, an unbelievable woman, a woman ahead of her time and probably the real driving force behind everything I've done. So it was an interesting day, to say the least, and I felt I should at least address that. I think she was definitely with us down the stretch.

MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes only, please.

Q. For Steve, you put the ball on the floor quite a bit tonight. Is that a newer skill that you've really grown with this year because you used to be more of just a spot-up shooter. But tonight, it seemed like you were really being aggressive, getting to the rim.
STEVE VASTURIA: Yeah, I think in this offense, the way we play, we kind of just take what the defense gives us. Having the confidence from coach and our older guys telling me to attack the rim, if I see an opening I'm going to try to make it. Just making the right basketball plays. So tonight I was able to get to the rim a little bit.

Q. Jerian, can you talk a little bit about this being what you came back for? I mean, everything you're doing, everything you did tonight, everything that lies ahead?
JERIAN GRANT: Yeah, just when I came back, just talking to the coaches and the players, we wanted to do something special. We wanted to leave a legacy here at Notre Dame, me and Pat, this being our last year. We wanted to be able to do something special. We're definitely on our way to doing that.

Q. Steve, to go back to the Sweet 16, a place you guys haven't been for 12 years and for you to have a career night, what does it mean to you and what does it feel like sitting up there now?
STEVE VASTURIA: It's a great feeling. We're playing really well right now. We made big plays down the stretch, and we've been that all year, getting big defensive stops, hitting shots. So it's a great feeling. We're playing with a lot of confidence right now so we want to keep it rolling.

Q. Jerian, again, on the isolation play there with 18 seconds left, can you talk a little bit about what you were looking for there and I know it was pretty loud, but it looked like your dad yelled from the stands, Go, right around the time you went. Did you hear him?
JERIAN GRANT: No, I didn't hear my dad, but I heard the bench telling me to drive. I was going to pull up. I wanted to shoot a jump shot in my step back. But I seen the lane open and my teammates and the coaches on the bench kept yelling drive. I felt like I had a lane. Once I drove, I seen the basket was open.

MODERATOR: Other questions for the student-athletes?

Q. Jerian, what was Roosevelt Jones able to do to score when he got down on the block? Looked like he was able to get some baskets, a strong physical guy. What was he able to do and what were you able to do at the end of the game to keep him from scoring?
JERIAN GRANT: He's definitely a physical player. He has an array of moves down there on the low block. So he was catching it a little deeper than we wanted him to catch. He had some nice moves down there. At the end we kind of put a bigger guy on Pat, a little stronger than I am. We had him pushed off the block and made his shots tougher.

MODERATOR: Gentlemen, thank you. Congratulations. Questions for Coach Brey?

Q. Mike, I'm sorry for your loss.
COACH BREY: Thank you.

Q. How did you get through it, I guess, is the simple question?
COACH BREY: I don't know if it's really registered with me, but my brother and sister are both in Orlando. That's where my parents are now. My dad's still alive. So there was great support down there. I talked to them a bunch throughout the day. I tell you, it sure kept my mind off the game. I'll say that much. But we're going to celebrate her life. I'm going to go down for the day tomorrow. She had a great run, a woman ahead of her time. As I said, '56 Olympian, world record holder when the butterfly was first invented. She was one of the first. She always said the East German woman that was breaking her records was on steroids even then. The ultimate competitor. She used to call -- I'd talk to her during the season and very rarely did I get hey, Mike, how you doing? It's like have you got them ready? Are they ready? I think we can beat Duke, Mike. It's unbelievable. She was intense. It was good to talk to my family. She was with me all the way tonight, and I'm really looking forward to spending some time with my family and watching Kansas and Wichita State tomorrow from Orlando.

Q. Coach, swimming is not an easy sport. You have to really want to do it, especially to excel. What did you learn as you a young athlete and maybe a young coach from your mom that she picked up through that sport?
COACH BREY: My mom and dad were my biggest mentors. Not to take anything away from Mike Krzyzewski or Morgan Wootten, but I grew up with two of the best educators ever. Every kid that they touched, whether the swimming pool they ran in the summer or as high school educators, loved them. I learned a lot right there, that their pupils loved them. I tried to emulate my mom and dad as far as how I interact with people. She tried to make swimmers out of all of us, and I snuck out of practice when I was 9 and she let me go to basketball camp. So that worked out real well.

Q. Was it the 5:00 a.m. swim practices?
COACH BREY: 5:00 a.m. stuff, no way. My sister did it. My brother and I were like can we please go to basketball camp? I got to go to Coach Wootten's camp and the rest is history.

Q. Back to the basketball end of things, is this -- did this game play out exactly like you thought it would where you'd spread the floor, you'd get ball movement, you'd find Vasturia or Connaughton for three?
COACH BREY: We did finally get great looks at crunch time. The game was a lot like games we've been in. Dog fights. We're down. We've come out of timeouts in that -- the one time-out we were down, what were we down, seven? Yeah, when we were down seven, I was talking about last Saturday. We were down nine to Carolina. I said fellas, we've done this before. They've been amazingly resilient. We've defended all five games of the postseason to get where we're at. They shoot 33 percent from the floor, Jones had a great night. Dunham never really got going. But our defense and our rebounding, you know, gave us those opportunities. I don't think anybody in the country makes clutch shots better than our group. It's not just one guy. It's a number of different guys that have done it. And I just think we just, we kind of love that moment. And you don't find that much.

MODERATOR: Other questions for Coach Brey? Anyone? All right. Thanks, Coach, congratulations.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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