Notre Dame basketball coach Micah Shrewsberry spoke following Friday night's win over TCU.
On the win:
“There's no excuses. I thought we were a step slow in the first half, a step behind and there was a little bit of shell shock when MarKus gets hurt. I thought we were a step behind there. The second half, they just really responded. The thing I told Jalen (Haralson) right before we went out after halftime, I said, ‘You've got to be the best player on the floor with no doubt of who that is.’ I thought he did that in the second half.”
On having 27 assists:
“That's our group. If you go back and look at stats, they give up a lot of assists. Part of how they rotate and how they do stuff. Quick turnaround. We don't do much on Wednesday practice-wise, but Thursday was spent on adding a couple things, a couple new rotations to take advantage of how they rotate.
“We thought we could get kickouts, extra passes, attacks and things like that. We've got to be that. With the way we shoot it, with the way we pass it, if we're doing that, guys are getting layups because they're driving and attacking closeouts. If we can keep doing it and playing that way, I think it makes us really hard to guard.”
On Cole Certa:
“ It was huge. He was 0-for-1. I told him to shoot the ball. I told him and Braeden (Shrewsberry), if there is any kind of daylight, if you can see a speck of light, let it fly. I thought they did it in the second half. I thought Cole was just so gutsy, man. That's who he is and that's how he plays. He responded, hit big shot after big shot after big shot, and then helped guard on the other end. I thought we really buckled down and guarded at times in the second half. He was a big part of that.”
On if Markus Burton’s injury will be long-term:
“I don't know. Still going to go back and look at him? We've got to go back and look at it, let our people look at it. We’ll figure it out. Ankle-related. We were down nine at halftime, so I didn’t spend a lot of time talking to Courtney (McNamara).
“I just wanted to get in the locker room and talk to our guys. We'll figure it out. We'll deal with it. That's the one thing. It's a good thing about having depth. You don't have depth like him, but you've got capable people.
“Logan Imes is always Johnny on the spot when you need something. I thought in the second half, he knocked down a big shot. He took over duties of guarding Brock Harding late, so maybe we need him more. Maybe we need Sir more to keep handling it and just spread the wealth out a little bit.”
On the core of the team:
“That group is tough. That's the one thing. They used to say this about our Butler teams. We look like Boy Scouts, but we defend like a motorcycle gang. That's the toughness of this team. We don't look like we're that tough, but these dudes are tough, man. Situation to situation, possession to possession. They're just tough from top to bottom.
“They got a lot of belief that we're never out of the game. We're going to do whatever it takes to get back in it. We got stops and hit a bunch of threes, and next thing you know, we're right there to start that second half.”
On getting wins over Missouri and TCU:
“It's a big week. We said it after Missouri. I told them Tommy Lloyd would always say this to our USA basketball teams, ‘So what, now what?’ That's how we came back before we watched film after the Missouri game. We won it and we celebrated Tuesday. Wednesday needs to turn the page.
“Now what? What are you going to do to follow it up? Don't come here and lay an egg. Don't go home and lay an egg against Idaho. Play the same exact way. We got to be a now what group. We're going to celebrate this tonight. We got off on Sunday. We're going to celebrate it that day and then we're going to turn the page and keep trying to get better as a group.”
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