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Notre Dame Basketball

Mike Brey Notebook | 11.9

November 9, 2020
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Notre Dame basketball coach Mike Brey spoke on Monday afternoon. 

On the challenge of the next five months:
"You're really living day-to-day. You try to think of five months and getting to March. It's a little bit too much to bite off, quite frankly. It's been awesome to be back and in training since mid-August and being in the gym with our guys. 

"It's an aggressive December schedule and when you see the two league games that will plug in tomorrow on the 16th and 22nd, you'll know I've lost my mind completely. "


On aggressive schedule:
"My feeling to really go for it and schedule big, exciting games for our kids. I don't know what's going to happen the rest of the winter after the first of the year. What are we like in February? Is there a March Madness? 

"To give our kids an unbelievable experience and you've seen the non-league games that are out there - when the 16th and the 22nd dates and opponents plug in tomorrow, no one has ever had it eight games like that to start the season. 

"If you think of our schedule, 27 games, 25 of them are Power Five conference games. Your scheduling strategy for your resume is all out the window. Let's play and get our kids playing. Hopefully, we play most of the 27."

"You don't throw these kind of games on the board non-league unless you think you got a group you can have some fun with. You saw at the end of last year and the second half of last year, the lightbulb go on for some of our young players, especially our juniors, which we invested in as freshmen. They got their backsides handed to them and then they grew."


On injuries:
"We're pretty healthy. You saw the announcement. Elijah Taylor had an issue with a tendon in his ankle. We would have loved to do the surgery in the summer, but we didn't him here in the summer. We couldn't ramp him up and because of COVID, you couldn't really ramp him up to see if we had an option that he needed surgery, which he did. We were hoping he did not and that's why we're going to wait until the end of the semester and let him finish his academics. Then we'll get him operated on so when he comes back to summer school in June, he'll be full barrel. 

Everybody else is back with us except Robby Carmody. He had a little bit of set back with a fractured kneecap. I think by Christmas, he'll be back on the practice court. The rest of our guys have remained healthy. 


On offseason:
"We probably had 22 practices. We had some preseason stuff. Never have we had more preseason because we started school earlier and what I've loved is our strength training. Even though we lost summer school, which is good strength training for six weeks, but we made it up. (Juwan) Durham's 240.

"Cormac Ryan is different. Physically, we really look good and we had more time because we started school earlier." 


On expectations for 2020: 
"We feel we can be an NCAA Tournament team. We're back in that mode. I think we all knew we had to swallow when these juniors were freshmen and we lost Pflueger. We swallowed hard, quite frankly. 

"I was very proud of after being 2-6 coming out of Tallahassee that we went 9-4 down the stretch. We would have been an NIT team last year most likely. That would have been good for our group. Nobody wants to miss the NCAA Tournament and certainly not us. 

"There was kind of a build back opportunity there or phase that we had to go through. I'm really excited about our group. You add a Cormac Ryan - our starting lineup if we played tonight would be (Prentiss) Hubb, Ryan, (Dane) Goodwin, Laszewski and Durham. Those five guys have played a lot of college basketball. They know how we play and they're older. They get it. Now, it's a matter of finding Matt Zona coming off the bench, who has been very impressive. Nik Djogo, a fifth-year guy, coming off the bench and Tony Sanders.”


On ruling with Trey Wertz and transfers in general:
"Trey came under the total understanding like we've done with all our transfers, you sit a year in residency. You get older, stronger and get eligible. 

"About three weeks ago, we came up with a proposal and my theory was this should be all hands on deck season to get through the season. We're already going down the line and we've seen a lot of waivers. Kids are getting waivers to play and many more are getting waivers than denied. I get that. That's fine. 

"I don't know why anyone on my roster would be ineligible in a COVID season. Trey Wertz could be my seventh man one night if we're going to play NC State and we wouldn't have to cancel the game. If he's ineligible under the residency rules of sitting out, I may have to cancel a game if I have some guys that test positive and are in quarantine. 

"We proposed this three weeks ago—all hands on deck. Anybody on your roster should be eligible to be put in the game. I think it naturally fits with we gave everyone their year of eligibility back a month ago anyway.

"Let's look at Trey's case. He still has his two full years of eligibility that he was expecting when he came here, even if he plays half the games or only 12. I would hope and I think there's some momentum picking up on this. It's just logical. You look at football games being canceled because there isn't enough guys. Utah didn't have enough guys. What's the basketball number going to be? 

"I think you need seven to play a game. No one has said anything. We don't have a league rule and I haven't seen a national rule. Anyone on my roster or anyone's roster should be eligible to play and we're going to continue to campaign and lobby the NCAA. 

"I believe some other leagues have picked up on this. The other reason is in January, everyone is going to be eligible on a transfer moving forward anyway. The year in residency is going out the window, most likely at the convention in January.

"If I have a roster of 12 guys with Trey Wertz being one of them. Elijah Morgan, my walk-on, I need all those guys eligible night to night. I'm going to need them all to get through five months." 


On challenges of testing:
"Unlike football, we're going to have multiple games a week. You're testing three times a week and multiple games. This is all new territory. I think everyone out there in college athletics and fans have gotten into the rhythm of how football testing happens. 

"We play Saturday, Monday, Saturday, this is going to get really interesting. I don't know how it's going to work until we're just thrown into it in about two weeks. It's three tests a week. Right now, we're at one a week. We will ramp that up next week to two a week and when we start playing, three a week.

"You manage it the best you can. We practice in the masks and we're all in the masks. I wondered how that would go and our guys have been fabulous. They practice in them and they don't complain about it. Certainly, we're going to be able to compete without the masks, but my feeling is we should then always practice in the masks even when the season starts, I don't think we need to be out of the masks in practice. We'll be wearing them on the sideline as coaches. 

"The multiple games and travel a week is territory that makes me nervous. We're going to do the best we can with it. I give our guys credit, they've been pretty darn resilient. 

"We're going to have games canceled. We're going to deal with it and we're going to be tough about it. We're going to move forward. As the leader more than any year I've been in coaching, the frame of mind of the young people and we're going to keep plugging. We're going to have disappointments with our schedule and disappointments with guys unavailable, but we're going to keep plugging and playing. My job is to keep them in that frame of mind for five months." 


On Cormac Ryan:
"I tell people Cormac will remind people of a (Steve) Vasturia/Chris Quinn kind off guard, which I mean that as a big-time compliment in the history of our program. 

"He's a combo guard. He's a little bit more of a point guard than TJ and Rex were. Prentiss kind of has a ball-handling running mate, which we've played that way before and it's been very effective.

"I've liked his creativity and ball-handling. We can really shoot the basketball. He's a better athlete than people know. He's every bit of 6'4 and has good strength. He can get to the basket.

"There's a toughness about him. He's got an edge about him. What I've loved watching over 20 practices is he and Hubb are interchangeable and are two quarterbacks on the court, which has really served us well in other years." 


On rebounding with John Mooney gone:
"When 12 rebounds walks out of the building and they were automatic with John Mooney, I think that would be my biggest concern. How do we defensive rebound? 

"I look at it and I think Nate Laszewski - we saw much improvement as a rebounder the second half of last season. He's got a knack for going and getting it, as does Juwan Durham. 

"Juwan is up to 240. If you were walking in and been in practice, where we are physically, I'm just so pleased. Juwan and Laszewski maybe made the biggest jumps. Laszewski has to be 230, but he looks like a young man now. He was a child for two years and was pushed around, but he fought and tried. He has a physical presence now. Juwan finally has been able to keep some weight on. 

"Juwan and Nate are going to have to get on that backboard for us and then our perimeter is going to have to help us rebound." 


On COVID positive tests in the program:
"We have just like anybody. We've had some guys miss because of COVID testing. We've worked around it. There's been some days where we're more 4-on-4 in practice. Scott Martin can still get out there and compete, so we've thrown him in drills. 

"For the most part, we've been really pretty whole. I've been very pleased with how whole we are." 


On freshman F Matt Zona:
"Thoroughly impressed with him. He's changed his body. He was a little heavy and he lost the weight and gained muscle. He's not going to play above the rim, but there's a strength and toughness and feel for the game. 

"I like to ask my old guards which one of the young guys can I put in the game and you'd be confident. Cormac, Prentiss and Dane unanimously said we need Zona. 

"That's the greatest endorsement when your senior captains and old guys say we need him to win. 

"I've been very impressed with him and he will be a key guy for us. A little Martin Geben like as far as a big guy that can play out on the perimeter and handle and catch it. He has good strength and he's very physical. He's got a little bit of New York crazy in him. I mean that as a compliment. His dad is a New York City fireman. How can you not be a tough dude if your dad is New York City firefighter?

"I'm excited in what I've seen in 20 practices. I think Cormac Ryan and Prentiss Hubb are just as excited."


On if he thought about retirement when Muffet McGraw retired:
"I think as I mentioned to some people, you can always get some fatigue in you when you've been doing the same place for 20 years. I didn't really think like that. 

I thought it was one of the best-kept secrets ever - her retirement in COVIDd. No one was working in the offices and I saw it on Twitter like you guys. I had no heads up on it. I kind of looked at it said that's a great idea. 

"I think given what I have coming back and given we invested in this junior class, that's a 2-3 year nucleus. I want to see what these guys can do. I know there was so much unknown all summer about our season and there still is, but you owe it to them to develop them when you got them this far. 

"I still have good energy and I like our young players. I like the nucleus we'll have playing together for a couple years. I wanted to keep riding with these guys." 

 
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