Mike Brey Notebook | Chicago State Win
Notre Dame head coach Mike Brey discussed the 89-62 win over Chicago State on Thursday night.
On the win:
“The group that ended the first half and started the second half defended. It was one of those games where you get off to a good start on offense and think it might be real easy. You don’t do much defensively and they get a little confident.
“I did like it was a frustrating halftime. We’re going to have many frustrating hafltimes. We didn’t have that on Tuesday, so we had to talk through stuff.”
On forward Elijah Burns:
“Very impressed with Elijah Burns. He’s a talker and he’s a positive energy guy. It’s funny how he stood out like a sore thumb and sparked us when we needed a voice. I’m thrilled for him. This is new territory for him. We talked about the freshmen all the time and Elijah is a new guy because we’re asking him to do more. Maybe he can grow out of a night like tonight.”
On frustrating moments and finding a lineup
“It was great for me because at times you look at say ‘Who do we play?’ Tonight was a night I had little epiphany that it’s a lot of guys. I have to make some decisions at some point. I’m learning too.”
On finding a method to rotation:
“I mentioned to the assistants, tonight I felt like we played too many guys. I feel like it might be too many guys. We have to think about shaving it down. Again, I think it’s all something I’m trying to get a feel for. The sad thing is those 10 guys are good players and we have to keep them engaged.”
On narrowing down rotation:
“There are a lot of even guys. I can’t answer it right now. We don’t play until next Wednesday, so we have to think about it a little bit. We kind of did it at halftime.”
On getting to the rim in the second half:
“We couldn’t guard and we were fouling them. Then we were frustrated against the zone. We eventually got to ball screening the ball more but we didn’t do it enough in the first half. Elijah is such a great ball screener and we drove gaps to get into the lane a little bit. We were in a better rhythm.”
On freshman Nate Laszewski:
“Nate has been playing 20 mins. All I know is when Nate has been playing 20 minutes he gets 12 points. Maybe he has to play 28 minutes. That goes through my mind.
“Laszewski and Harvey can play together with a big guy. We shouldn’t just think of Laszewski as a big. He may come and take some guard minutes because he gets stuff done. We might have to play zone but we’ll figure it out.”
On freshman Dane Goodwin:
“He played too much. 24 minutes is too much. He snuck 24 minutes from me. That should have been more like 18 or 19. He wasn’t playing bad but that’s a little too much. Someone else should have gotten about four of those. That’s where my mindset is right now.”