Mike Brey Notebook: Wake Forest

Notre Dame head coach Mike Brey spoke about the 76-71 win at Wake Forest on Saturday. 

On the win:
“I’m proud of our group. It’s a great win for us. I thought our defense the last six minutes kicked in. Wake Forest is a really gifted offensive team, and it was hard for us to guard them. We tried a little bit of everything. 

“We had some guys make some really big shots. Matt Farrell is a senior, and we want him taking that. He banged it down.” 

On Matt Farrell’s three:
“We wanted to go at seven on the shot clock. We screen Martinas into a ball screen. As he was dragging it, I could see in Matt’s eyes he was going to take it. We did execute really well. 

On grinding out a win:
“It’s who this group has been all year. We’ve been dealt a crazy hand on the injury front. We’ve never used it as an excuse. Other guys have come in and battled. It’s the culture of the program that has a lot of character. 

“Our senior class, Martinas and Matt set an unbelievable tone for us today.” 

On Martinas Geben:
“He’s been playing well. They didn’t double him and played him with one guy. He has really developed into a low-post scorer for us. He’s very confident, and he’s got good footwork. 

“I didn’t know we would have this when Bonzie left. When Bonzie was there, he was our low-post guy, and Martinas cleaned up the backboard. We’ve been able to establish him in the low-post, and it has kept us alive.” 

On life without Bonzie Colson:
“You look at the guys that stepped forward. A guy like Nik Djogo, he doesn’t score, but has nine rebounds and played 32 minutes. I don’t know how (Rex) Pflueger played tonight. He’s really hurting. He worked through it tonight. 

“I wanted to keep helping us this year. Everyone said it will help next year, but let’s not get through this year too soon. We may make a run at this thing. Our pulse is still there after today.”