Mike Brey Notebook | 12.6
Notre Dame basketball coach Mike Brey spoke before Friday's practice as the Irish prepare for Saturday's game against Boston College.
On Saturday's game against Boston College:
"I like how we've played here and that's where we back in the mold of having a home identity. That's trying to get to 1-on-1 in the league."
On potential negative momentum in the program:
"I'm too far into my career to worry about it. If I was younger, I would, but I think this group will develop. I think we're going to make a run at an NCAA Tournament bid. We have eight and we can't afford any more bodies to go down.
"I think we can be in the mix. I told them they lost two games they should have lost and won the six you should have won. It's kind of where we should be right now. Let's see if we can get to 1-1 in the league and come up for air after that."
On potentially adding walk-ons:
"I don't think so. (Ryan) Ayers is always available to practice. He can be No. 11 if we have to go that far."
On the team learning about leadership:
"(Rex) Pflueger, (TJ) Gibbs and (John) Mooney are men and they've been around. They have great ownership. We certainly got our butts kicked by a really good team. They were more down about Robby's situation. They were knocked back on their heels and even a little bit yesterday.
"You're either going to snap out of it and play or you're going to keep getting beat. It's that simple."
On rotation with fewer bodies:
"You have to play all kinds of versions of those eight guys. Also, Elijah has to be ready to play for us. He's a good guard.
"We have to be ready to play everybody. We've always been smart about practice and not overdoing it. We probably have to be a little smarter about what you do with your practice length."
On the team being where they should be:
"I don't want them jumping off any cliffs because we're 6-2 and we lost to North Carolina and Maryland. Certainly, we lost Robby and that's a loss because he was starting to trend up as a basketball player.
"We have 25 games to play. I think we have pretty good personnel here. Let's see if we can get to 1-1 in the league and get yourself a little bit."
On importance getting to 1-1 in the ACC:
"I'd rather be 1-1 at Christmas time than 0-2 in this league knowing what you have coming after Christmas.
"It's a hard league. It's harder than the Big East. We knew what we were getting into and it's played out that way. We've been all over the board in our tenure. We've been up and down, left and right, where we were a little more consistent in the Big East.
"To get a home win and keep the home thing going, let's start with that and then we'll deal with Sunday and getting ready for Detroit."
On TJ Gibbs getting out of his funk:
"I can't bench him because I don't have any other guys to put in. I think for him overall, he's had a pretty good early start to this season. He wasn't very good - none of our perimeter guys were very good the other night. Our big guys did about everything we could have asked them to do.
"Our perimeter as a whole was kind of swallowed up. They want to bounce back as a group. I think you have to let TJ move on because overall, he's giving us pretty good stuff."
On confidence on the team:
"I think it's a little bit of reality check. There's no question. I'm interested to see how we come out tomorrow because we got punched in the face good and had to deal with Robby's situation.
"It's time to be men and get up and see if we can win a league game."
On Boston College:
"They run their stuff well. They kind of grind you up. They have some new faces. The big guy is still hard to deal with, but I know they've gone through their stuff as they're trying to figure it out.
"I know we've had a streak. I don't know how many we've won against them, but it's going to be a hard game. They always are. We played with six guys last year and somehow stole it. We do have Nik Djogo, the Boston Strangler. We've got him ready."