Mike Brey Notebook: Return to Delaware
Notre Dame will travel to Delaware for an important out of conference game on Saturday afternoon. Head coach Mike Brey spoke on Thursday afternoon about a rare road trip against his former school and former assistant coach Martin Ingelsby.
On emotions of Saturday’s game against Delaware:
“I tried to prepare like its any road trip and keep my focus on us. As it gets closer, there are more people that want to check in, come by practice and the hotel. I want to be a good guy and do that diplomatically.
“It’s going to be a ruckus atmosphere and ACC-type of atmosphere. I’ve tried to tell them that we need to bounce back, but also a road win is good for the resumè. I think I’ll do a lot of reminiscing, but I haven’t been in the building for 12-14 years.
“They’ve got a new practice facility now. To play against Martin is kind of a weird feeling. I almost don’t want to compete against your former guys. Business is business, and we’ll prepare and be ready.”
On differences in himself since the Delaware job:
“I’m more confident as a coach. When you have 18 years since you left, I think I’m a bit wiser. I’m a bit calmer. I’m a better delegator to my assistants. As a young coach, you want to do everything, and I did that when I was at Delaware.”
On Ingelsby knowing his tendencies:
“It makes it interesting. A couple of our guys watched Delaware and said they run ‘our stuff.’ Some of that is Martin’s stuff. We conspired a lot on our offensive stuff. He’s got his own tweaks in there.
“He’s always had a good offensive mine, and he’s trying to turn his young guards loose to play and get confident. Guys are playing 34-35 minutes, and he’s got some guys that can get on a run.”
On thought process over the last 48 hours:
“Wednesday is an off day, so you really can’t touch them. We came in this morning, and I thought we needed to go twice today. We didn’t go for but 30 minutes this morning. We set a tone and to not see them for 48 hours after a tough loss isn’t great.
“I told them we won Maui and rocked it to No. 5 in the country and people might think we are a finished product. We have some things we have to answer and figure out. We have to remember we are in the process and we’re not going to overreact.”
On bench scoring:
“The one thing a John Mooney can do is stretch the floor and make an open shot. That’s intriguing that he can make the three-point shot and is active around the bucket. He’s gotten better defensively.
“We don’t win Maui with DJ (Harvey). He’s having a little bit of the freshman ‘here come assignments/exams.’ There is a lot going on, and we have to get him in gear. (Elijah) Burns, (Austin) Torres and Nic (Djogo) aren’t off the radar. I want to get Nic in a white shirt and exam that as well.”
On rebounding:
“That was disappointing to see 13 putbacks by Ball State. When we’re showing on ball screens hard, our big guys are good at hard hedging, but it does extend them, and they’re out on the three-point line recovering.
“Sometimes we have looked at a different ball screen coverage, and we have to have that ready. That was my fault. We should have changed that a little bit in the second half in hindsight. I also think we have to stay on our guards to help us. Rex (Pflueger) has shown he can rebound. TJ (Gibbs) can help us there.”
“Our block outs have to be better. We were sloppy, and we were watching. We need some reps at blocking out today and tomorrow.”
On point guard Matt Farrell:
“He had missed a couple and didn’t shoot it well in the first half, I thought he turned down a couple of shots. I give him a lot of credit taking the big one to tie it, but it’s still a work in progress. You can’t dwell on missing three in a row. If the fourth one comes up, you have to take it and not be thinking too much.”