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BIG EAST CONFERENCE MEN'S TOURNAMENTMarch 10, 2009Mike BreyTory JacksonKyle McAlarneyTyrone NashNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK Notre Dame -61 COACH MIKE BREY: Well, you know, we had to defend to win the game. I told our guys keeping them at 50 points was the key to us winning it because I thought they really defended us well. They got the shot blockers back there. Hard for us to maybe establish our low post as constantly. That's kind of what happened in South Bend when we played them and it was a close game. We made some big free throws, made some big shots and our bench was fabulous. Guys coming off the bench really gave us a lift, Jon Peoples, Luke Zeller and Ty Nash. JOHN PAQUETTE: Questions, please. Q. Coach, do you think that mixing zones between the 2-3 and the man caused a lot of problems? COACH MIKE BREY: I was hoping we could stay in zone a little longer tonight like we did Friday night against St. John's. (Mike) Rosario hit those two and then when we were zone early in the second half, they got ghem to the foul line and I think enough. The only way we were going to win the game was by manning up and playing man-to-man. You got to guard a lot of ball screens and drive with them. For the most part we did a good job of putting our chest in front of people when they really forced some drives. Q. Ty, what was kind of going through your head there at the end with the free throws? TYRONE NASH: I was concentrating going to the line and knocking them down. Coach trusted me, keep me in the game late. I wanted to reward him with two free throws. Q. For all three players, starting with "Joey Staten Island" (Kyle McAlarney) over here, so much has been made of your season, what the expectations were, the struggles that you guys have gone through and now getting here. What is your thinking going through this tournament, is it still we can make the NCAA? What's the thought? KYLE MCALARNEY: I think a lot of credit has to go to the coaching staff for keeping us positive and keeping us confident. We're pretty confident group but it's very easy, you know, in the stretch that we had to get kind of down on ourselves and Coach Brey did a great job of keeping us up and positive. We know we have a good shot at making a run at this thing and there's some opportunities left here this week and that's really all we're focusing on right now. I think the standings and the records and the streak we had gets thrown out the window when we come to New York. TORY JACKSON: I have to agree with Kyle. The coaching staff did an excellent job of keeping everybody positive, keeping everybody together whenever somebody struggled. It didn't even seem like it fazed us because the coach always had us smiling and always had us thinking on to the next play and just we can do better, we'll get better, and all the credit goes to the coach and with the NCAA tournament and all that right now, I don't think we too much focus on that. I think we're getting ready to focus on the West Virginia game tomorrow. That's all it's about. TYRONE NASH: Yeah. My two teammates, I just -- Coach tries to make us focus on the task at hand. All we can control is the game we play so we just go out there, try to have fun, work our butts off and win each game one at a time. Q. Coach, Rutgers had 46 rebounds; is that a concern? COACH MIKE BREY: Rebounding the basketball for us is always a concern, especially going into tomorrow tonight. What beat us in Morgantown was 16 offensive rebounds. I'm not worried of us outrebounding the other team but not getting beat up there. The nights we struggled in this league we've been beaten, you know, there. So certainly that's going to be -- it didn't hurt us as bad here but tomorrow that's got to be a big focus because that's what really changed the game in Morgantown. We were in position. Q. Mike, when you come into something like this back-to-back-to-back, do you coach differently? Is it a different way of looking at the game? COACH MIKE BREY: You got to get the first one and for us, you know, just focusing on New York. One of the things we talked about when we came back from UCLA and that was seven losses in a row, let's get in some kind of rhythm to make it interesting, you know. We didn't talk about, you know, we got to do this to get a bid and all that. Just was not realistic for them to grasp that. You know, we made it interesting until the last week. We couldn't pick off Connecticut or Villanova. We at least came back and got St. John's. Kind of back in the mode of let's see if we can make it interesting again. Now, I was looking last night and I can't -- I don't know if this has ever happened before. The four one seeds that Joe Lunardi has up there, we played six games against the four 1 seeds. Has that ever happened before in three on the road, two at home and one at a neutral site? We have 13 losses. Do we have a bad loss? Look at it and tell me if we really have a bad loss. We don't have enough good wins. Don't get me wrong. We've got work to do. But we will make it interesting again. That's what we said when we came here. You got to get the first one to make it interesting. Q. Mike, how much was Luke Zeller struggling? COACH MIKE BREY: Probably struggling a little bit. The shot blockers back there, you got to give them credit. They pulled him out a little bit and so we played a little different front line. Luke Zeller made some big shots for us and also was really big between defensively for us. Certain Ty Nash gave us good minutes. Using the personnel that you felt was going to get it done for you and it was great that those guys finished. Q. Mike, you heard your guys say a lot of credit to the coaching staff, you kept them up. Where did you go for your strength? COACH MIKE BREY: There's a bar around the corner -- laughter. Q. You know it's making The Post, right? COACH MIKE BREY: Irish bar. Irish bar. You know, we've been in survival mode since January 20th, probably so what else new toys come here and people say you've got to play a couple games. We've been in survival mode for a while. I think our staff has been good at staying positive and getting confidence and then certainly getting on these guys when there's things we needed to do better. When we came out of that Cincinnati, UCLA stretch, there were some things we had to do better and addressed it. We've been better since then. We haven't won enough games to be in the discussion but I think we're playing better and our frame of mind is better there. But I think my staff was good at that, certainly my wife Tish was good at that. I don't know if she's going to still be there after the season but she was great. JOHN PAQUETTE: Any other questions? Pete. Q. Mike, I think your best two defensive performances have come in the last two games. You've tried to out score people a bit this year? COACH MIKE BREY: Pete, two different ways of doing it. We were able to stay in zone against St. John's the whole game and I was kind of hoping maybe we could tonight but, you know, the karma said no. (Mike) Rosario hits a couple and we move better. So that's encouraging that, you know, we didn't have to get 82 to win a game. We had a couple at home that we did that in, Louisville only scored 57, South Florida scored like 55 and we had to gut that one out. These guys have been tough enough to gut a few out when we're not in a offensive rhythm. It's good we didn't have to because we may have to do it tomorrow night again. Q. I guess, Mike, can you change like the personality of your team this late in the season? Can you become a lock-down team? COACH MIKE BREY: I don't know if we're going to be -- we're not going to get out and contest and turn you over, ever, but I think we've become a pretty good position defensive team. I think probably since that UCLA, we've played better together on the defensive end. We've always played pretty well together on the offensive end. We're up there in assists, we don't turn it over, we know where the ball should go for the most part. I think we've been unselfish defensively. We've rotated over and helped our teammate much more willingly and I think we've done that the last two games. JOHN PAQUETTE: Notre Dame, thank you. End of FastScripts |
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