Mike Brey Notebook | Marshall Win
Notre Dame basketball coach Mike Brey spoke following the 74-64 win over Marshall on Friday night.
On the win:
"I never thought it was going to be easy against those guys. We had a little surprise being up like that early. They have bodies. There were athletic ACC bodies.
"I loved that we figured out how to escape. That's how we're going to have to play. We're guarding well enough to get out of there. Johnny (Mooney) was superhuman, obviously."
On bench play:
"We didn't get as much off our bench other than Dane (Goodwin). (Robby) Carmody got dinged and we have to get him healthy for Monday.
"Then we downshifted because they were hard to deal with. We need more energy off the bench. I've got to be confident to use them. I wasn't as confident to use them in the second half, especially Robby. He just had that look. I don't think it's a concussion or anything.
"We had to get the ball in against pressure. We had to make free throws. All the kind of stuff you have to do to win close games."
On the team being able to figure it out down the stretch:
"I'm looking as its coming and having a little bit of the flashbacks - will we be mentally tough enough to get over the hump? We had some really keys stops and got some loose balls.
"Ol' (Rex) Pflueger in there defensively - it's a whole different ball game with him back in there defensively at the end of the game with loose balls and stuff like that."
On Pflueger's steal to gain momentum late in the game:
"That got us going. The one thing about TJ (Gibbs) and Rex, they really guard and they contest passes. They're good at setting people up and overplaying. Rex has more overplay steals probably than a lot of guys in the history of our program. He's sneaky about getting in there and he gets them at keys times."
On the ability to lean on defense:
"I just think we're going to have to rely on that. There are just going to be nights where you have a hard time scoring. This group likes to guard and they know they can guard, especially the Pflueger, Gibbs, Hubb, Mooney and whoever the fifth is. Those four guys are really good defending together.
"Prentiss has learned a lot on how to guard as a college guard playing with TJ and Rex. They shove him into places when he's not in the right spot."
On John Mooney:
"He's unbelievable. We're riding him so hard. He's fabulous. He's just a man. The thing about him tomorrow, he's going to want to shoot extra. I'm going to have to lock the gym up because he needs rest. The physical display of doing that over 34 minutes is just really amazing."