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CROSSROADS CLASSIC: PURDUE VS NOTRE DAME

December 17, 2016

Mike Brey

Indianapolis, Indiana

Purdue - 86, Notre Dame - 81

MIKE BREY: Tough one to swallow for us, but give Purdue credit. I thought they really guarded the heck out of us in the second half, and we had a hard time dealing with them and were stuck in the paint. We didn't do enough tough stuff in the paint. So tough one to swallow because we had played well enough, and I love the start we got off to.

Q. What changed in the second half offensively?
MIKE BREY: Probably a little bit the same thing happened last Saturday. I don't think our movement was great. That's two Saturdays in a row against really good teams we stopped moving and we stood a little bit. Probably the best movement we got is when we subbed and had TJ and Rex in there, and I really love what they gave us, our bench gave us tonight. Probably should have played them more.

Q. How do you account for that just two weeks in a row, same kind of thing happening?
MIKE BREY: Coaching.

Q. Can you elaborate on that, just what you saw?
MIKE BREY: Probably a little bit of fatigue on our part. Probably got to get them a little more organized, and that's on me to help them a little bit more with some stuff. We just couldn't get one, couldn't get an easy one to make us feel good, but I think you've got to give Purdue credit, and again, Villanova did the same thing. We're not in the league of the two high-level teams we played. I told them that. We've got a nice team. I love our team. We're not in their league right now. We've got some work to do before New Year's Eve.

Q. How concerned are you with Geben and Beachem, both getting shut out in the second half?
MIKE BREY: You know, I'm not so concerned about that. I mean, I thought Martin Geben battled. I'm not worried about him as much. With V.J. I think they really took him away, and we don't want him to force. It's kind of, for him the way we play, we're not like running stuff for him all the time. Over the course of the game, he usually gets pretty good looks. I'm glad he didn't force anything. Steve was trying so hard, feel for him. Tough night.

To beat good teams -- for us to beat really good teams like the two last Saturday, our big four all have to play really well, and you know, we didn't have that. But we'll go to work on that over the next couple weeks before we have to play our opener in the ACC.

Q. How can you do the stuff tough stuff better there in the second half?
MIKE BREY: Yeah, I don't know. When you're downshifted a little bit against their physicality, you're going to give up some stuff in the paint, and we knew we'd give that up. We absorbed it pretty good in the first half because we'd score on the other end, but we couldn't get anything going offensively in the second half, and you know, human nature is human nature; you know, tell your guys to guard even though they have a tough offensive position, but when you don't get into any flow that we get into offensively, it wears on you a little bit mentally, and I thought it did on us really both games, last Saturday and today.

Q. And then when you don't get any the second half, you're not going to win many games like that?
MIKE BREY: No, we're not going to beat good teams. Those guys had a tough one, and we're -- it's a really good team. For us, those guys, like our big four, they have to be really good for us to beat good teams. You know, but we'll bounce back and work on some stuff. We've got some time to work on some stuff before, and we've got two games where we can work on some stuff before league play starts.

Q. Purdue went to that smaller look to start the second half with Edwards at the power forward. Just how did that change the dynamic and the impact that he and Swanigan made?
MIKE BREY: Well, I think they could guard us better. They did a much better job on the ball screen defense. We got what we wanted in the first half, and for the most part did a really good job with the ball screen stuff in the second half. They made a good adjustment, and not having their two bigs on the floor helped them. It's darned if you do, darned if you don't. If you're going to help on Swanigan, you give up a three, and we finally tried to help a little bit because he was just crushing us in there and it was hard to play defense without fouling him. But you know, it's one of those things, when do you play with fire and give up a three-point shot.

Q. When you get to this time of year, like you said, you're looking at the end of December. What most do you want to see between now and then?
MIKE BREY: Yeah, I think still, our interior defense and defensive rebounding is going to be a key, and you know, I thought that would be an issue I would be worried about. It was an issue I worried about in October. And we've made progress; don't get me wrong, we've made progress. But when we really start to play up, it's got to be better, and that's an area we really have to address over the next couple weeks.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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