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NIT POSTSEASONMarch 31, 2009Mike BreyLuke HarangodyTory JacksonNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK MIKE BREY: Well, we lost to a heck of a team. I think they had 26 wins, and I can see why. And they really defended us. To beat them, you are going to have to be a little better offensively. I think a lot of it was their defense, and probably some of it was us missing some pretty good looks from shooters who are pretty good shooters. You know, I'm proud of our group. Especially our senior captains, to get us back to New York. We left the BIG EAST Tournament and I think we really practiced well and played well in our three games to get here, and I'll always be really proud of the senior captains that helped set the tone to do that. It ends, quick, man, when it ends. It's amazing how quick it ends. But Penn State deserved it. They really made big plays and jumped on us early. Q. Defensively was there anything tactically that they did? MIKE BREY: I think it's a lot of what we saw in the BIG EAST, really getting out on our perimeter and contesting and pushing us out. You know, I thought Luke (Harangody) had some, he had some great looks in the low post early. God, I'll take those any day. They just rimmed out. At a key time when they were kind of getting confident, we could not score enough to kind of just stem the tide. I'm very proud of the run we made. We made a heck of a run at that thing to get it to four, but it's a deep hole when you're digging out of that. Q. What was mind-set going into the game? TORY JACKSON: Going into the game, we just felt like we had to stop their transition game, get back and rebound. Earlier, they got some easy buckets and got confident and knocked down a few shots and the second half, the momentum changed. But we couldn't hit nothing. We couldn't hit nothing at the end. They are a great team, very strong, but we had a chance at the end. So I'm not sad about the loss or nothing like that. I'm very happy about what happened. I'm just sad that the seniors went out like that. Q. Could both of you guys talk about what happened in the first half, the big-time struggle offensively for you guys. LUKE HARANGODY: We were not able to get in a good rhythm like we usually do and they came out strong and made some tough shots and got themselves going. We never made the run in the first half like we usually do to get in an offensive flow. TORY JACKSON: Like he said, we never really got anything going. Got out on the guards and made us start out a little farther than what we wanted to start, couldn't really get inside. They took us out of our rhythm. The second half, we got into it. We made a run and we did what we wanted to do. The first half we just got down a little farther than what we expected. Q. Can you talk about the play of Andrew Jones on both ends of the floor? LUKE HARANGODY: Looking at the stat sheet, he had a pretty quiet game, but 16-15, I didn't realize he had that. You have to hand it to him on the boards. He was big on the defensive end for them. Q. What was going on you and (Scott) Carleton? Did you think he was trying to get under your skin at all? LUKE HARANGODY: Yeah, just two physical players going after each other. After the game, we are all settled down and we're cool with each other. That's just two competitors going at it. Q. What do you guys feel about the way things ended up? TORY JACKSON: I'm actually pretty happy because we set out a big goal after the BIG EAST Tournament, we set out a big goal to get back here. Obviously we wanted to win it but we didn't. We came up on the short end today. I'm happy with where we are going and we have a great group of young guys. I'm very excited about next year. I want to start early now. We really got a chip on our shoulder and we didn't make the NCAA Tournament, but the NIT is just as good as the NCAA Tournament to tell you the truth. Great teams were in this tournament. Penn State and Baylor, two of the top teams I felt like; just watching them tomorrow, that will be like an NCAA Tournament game. This tournament, everything we did this year, I'm very excited about our team and I'm very happy about what happened. Sad the seniors are gone. It's going to be weird not seeing them in the locker room no more but very excited about what we have got next year. Q. Can you tell me what the seniors meant to your program? MIKE BREY: They meant a lot. Afterwards, I thanked them for -- they had, I want to say, 84 wins. Their record at Notre Dame over a four-year period is 92. Those two guys that just left the room are sitting at 70. So they would have a chance to make a run at the all-time winning-est class with 22 wins next year. And more than the basketball stuff, I thanked them for how they represented us as Notre Dame men. These are four guys, they are obviously going to graduate in a month. They have been class acts as far as how they have handled themselves on and off the court. Really, you know, you go through adversity through a season, you really need good leadership. I don't want to say it's easy to be a captain when you win 14 league games like we did last year, but it's easy to be a captain when you win 14 league games. When you are scratching and clawing leading seven in a row and I think we went 9-4 to finish this thing, you'd better have some leadership and some men to help you set the tone in the locker room, and I had that really the whole year. I'm really looking forward to celebrating those seniors at our banquet in a couple of weeks. We don't have a guest speaker at our banquet; our seniors speak. It's pretty good to hear them present themselves and see how far they have come as young men. Q. As much as you guys played here -- did you expect to be better off than that? MIKE BREY: Yeah, I thought we would. I thought we could maybe get into a better offensive rhythm. I don't think we have been good in the four games we have played here; even the Rutgers game was a low-scoring game. We scored 60 and they scored 50, I believe. They got out on us and really got to us. A couple of things around the basket (Luke) Harangody usually gets going and they rimmed out. And I'll take those jump hooks and those post moves in the first half; that kind of gets us going and establishes our rhythm. We were not able to get that, and then you're kind of trying to find it. We got it a little bit in the second half, but, my gosh, are you digging out of a hole then. Q. What happened in the second half? MIKE BREY: Well, you know, I think (Luke Harangody) Gody got into a rhythm. He got into a better rhythm. He got to the basket a little bit. He got fouled. He got to the foul line. And then when he gets going, we can play inside out, which is our best chance to kind of flow offensively. And we actually started to play like that in the second half. And I think we had it to four. Ryan (Ayers) has two great looks right there. But it's hard digging out of a hole. You know, the night was a weird night in that sometimes you feel the karma is not good. We had great karma at home to get here. But when (Danny) Morrissey hit that shot at the end of the shot clock over Zach Hillesland you kind of say to yourself, maybe the stars are not lining up great for us tonight and they are in a real great rhythm. That was a heck of a tough shot. And that's a little demoralizing, because we are guarding and that may have been our third or fourth stop in a row and then you're starting to feel; and then boom. Again I just think we could not go inside out enough over 40 minutes. Because if you tell me 67 points, that's pretty good defensively, to keep them at 67 for us. But we just did not score the ball enough. Q. What did you say to Luke specifically? MIKE BREY: When he came out, I told him how proud I was of him. The guys that have hunted him down and physically defended him, including tonight, in this league, it's been amazing and this guy has come out and delivered every night. I told him how proud I was of him, and then he'll get some rest and then we have some things to talk about in his future. He and I and his parents need to sit down next week and talk about what we want to do and examine some things. We said, you know what, basically, I told him, let's take a week off, and then you and I and mom and dad sit down, get back academically caught up a little bit and talk about plan of attack and what we want to do. I just think he's a young man that needs to examine his stock. He owes that to himself to do that. I've had three guys test the waters. I feel good that all three have made the right decision. Troy Murphy came out early; it was the right decision, he was the 14th pick. He signed his $50 million deal and now we are trying to get money from him. That's how it works. Torin Francis and Chris Thomas put their name in and came back, and I'm glad -- we never had anybody hanging out there. They graduated. They had major surgery. They are playing in Europe but they have their degrees. I want to make sure we go four-for-four with Luke, whatever that means. When Troy Murphy looked me in the eye and said, "I think I have to stay in," and I said, "I think you do, too, congratulations and thank you for everything you did for our program." If Luke is in that position, we'll have another parade with all he's done. The great thing is, you can take your time with this, and the NCAA has been so good at allowing kids to do this without having to worry about how they pay for it, and you can -- or agents getting involved. They have really been open-minded about the climate out there, and this is a kid that needs to take advantage of that rule and see what's out there. And the nice thing is, you have plenty of time to do that over the next couple of months. Thank you. End of FastScripts |
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