Mike Brey meets with media ahead of Notre Dame’s 2022-23 season

“I kept telling my staff – their job is to keep presenting options – I said, ‘Fellas, we kind of told these young guys ([autotag]Dom Campbell[/autotag] and [autotag]Ven-Allen Lubin[/autotag]) we’re going to invest in them and play them,’ and I was always a little apprehensive. Now, what solved it was I didn’t know Nate (Laszewski) was coming back.

So you were going through and going, ‘Well, let’s have at least one experienced guy because there’s a chance we’re going to lose Paul (Atkinson Jr.) and Nate,’ and I really thought Nate was gone for a while, and I think he felt that way, too. And then, eventually, (we) got feedback, and we got him back. So once you got him back, now, we gotta invest in a Ven or a Dom or a (Matt) Zona. Let them see what they do as far as the other big guys.”

“Older guys don’t fight the game as much. They let the game come to them, and this nucleus of guys, you know, they’re really trusting of each other. I think we certainly can pass the ball, and that’s something we’ve emphasized, and they believe in it. We improved defensively last year starting with some of the principles we put in, and (associate head coach) [autotag]Anthony Solomon[/autotag]’s been fabulous on that front. It’s five old guys, really four guys. We add (Trey) Wertz to the big three. I went into this thing in the summer like, ‘You know, everybody’s got a big three.’ (Cormac) Ryan, (Dane) Goodwin, Laszewski. We did prime table once a week in the summer. That was our big three diner inner talk, and I do a lot of listening. Those guys, they’re really hungry, they really want it, they know how to do it. I think Wertz has really emerged because (Prentiss) Hubb and (Blake) Wesley are gone, and he’s more confident and a little more assertive, and we need him to be. And you could argue that maybe (Marcus) Hammond’s been our best guard through 13 practices. He was always a scorer at Niagara. He’s like, ‘Wow, if I get my feet set over there, they will find me.’ We’ve got a pretty good passing team. So, those five old guys, again, know how to play.

And then, (JJ) Starling and Lubin have played older than they are. I want to give half of that credit to them because there is a maturity about them. I also want to give a lot of credit to our five fifth-year guys who, when you play with them as a young guy, you kind of learn tempo a little bit. And really, those seven have kind of emerged right now as probably playing the best.”

“Marcus can really push it in transition. He can really shoot the basketball. He’s a scorer. He can score. One of the things he said to me was, ‘God, Coach. With this team, when I drive and kick it, it’s almost an assist every time,’ because we have guys that can make shots. I don’t know if Niagara had that all the time. And it’s interesting to watch him because he came from a mid-major program where the resources aren’t much, and we have that nutrition station in there, and he was like, ‘Do I have to pay for this?’ … I think he’s really taken advantage of the laboratory that that place is. He gives you another gear and gets in there and scores in different ways.”

“I think it’s always finishing a possession still with a defensive rebound. I think that has been something that has haunted us at times, and we have not been able to absorb putbacks, even though we won a couple of games (last year) where we gave up 18 offensive rebounds ’cause our offensive is so efficient. I would hope we can get in there, and when you have older guards now, too, they can even rebound better. Cormac’s always been a good rebounder. Dane rebounds.

Can we finish the possessions enough with a defensive rebound? One of the selling points to them is when we do get it off the backboard, then we’re able to run. And I think that when come down the floor and spread the floor and pass it like we do, it’s really a lot of fun to play that way instead of taking it out of bounds. We know where we want to send the ball. I think we made that really clear last summer. JJ can get in a stance. Ven can block some shots. Paul wasn’t really a rim protector. Ven’s up there changing some stuff. And then, we’ll play some zone, too, and we actually worked on that a little bit the past couple of days. And we’ve got some wingspan back there. Nate’s in the middle of the zone now instead of Paul, and he’s got a great voice. Nate is such an unselfish defender. He talks, rotates, he’s such a good anchor there.”

“We’ve done a little bit more with posting everybody out of our motion. Certainly, Dane’s been a good low-post guy. Cormac catching it down there, Trey catching it down there. Not necessarily for a power move, but to kind of give the defense a little bit different look. Even [autotag]Marcus Hammond[/autotag] the other day, we posted him up. He got all excited. He said, ‘I’m down here in the post.’ So, we looked at different guys. Nate has been good down there because I think Nate has gotten more comfortable as a passer out of there. He knows he’s not gonna drop-step and power a guy, but he’s shot some fadeaways and some hooks, but he’s also finding people.

As far as a low-post scorer though, there’s nobody like Paul, but I think Ven has potential, and we’ve tried to do some things where we said, ‘Let’s get him a low-post touch.’ He’s a very good passer. … He and JJ, I think, fit those guys well because they really see the floor and pass and are willing to pass it and fit in well ’cause the low-post touch has always helped us.”

“We made our bed. As much as some of our coaches complained in our spring meetings, we made our bed because weren’t we 5-15 in nonleague? We really had nothing to stand on, so we didn’t bring any juice. We had three great wins:  Duke over Kentucky and Gonzaga, and us over Kentucky. That’s all the league had in the nonleague. Now, it’s great to go 14-5 in the NCAA Tournament and get going, and that always usually happens, right? The league that is, ‘Ah, they’re down, they stink,’ they always get rolling, and the league’s that’s supposedly rolling gets clipped. Kind of like the Big Ten. Just ask (Syracuse coach Jim) Boeheim.

I’ve seen this for 25 years now. I think because we’re old, Virginia’s old, (North) Carolina’s old, Virginia Tech’s old, I think we can rotate back out of five bids, but you gotta win some nonleague stuff. We got Marquette, Georgia and Michigan State. We played five last year, and we were 1-4, but the one we got got us over the hump and kept us hanging around. I may have done the same thing if I was at Wake Forest. (Steve Forbes) didn’t know what he had. He scheduled to kind of get confidence, and then, there’s no nonleague wins for them. You win 13 league games, and you’re not in. It’s hard to look at ACC teams with 12, 11 and 13 wins and not getting in. That does worry me long-term, but by Christmas, we’re gonna know what we’re taking in (with the) RPI. And of course, we’ve got two league games before Christmas.”

“I think there’s a real maturity and seriousness about him. And again, old teammates help. I think Nate, like Prentiss was with Blake, has looked at him like, ‘There’s my other big guy. Paul’s gone.’ And he’s really nurtured him. I think it’s helped Nate to not maybe think about his game and think about, ‘I gotta help this young guy get ready.’ He’s kind of a old soul.”

“The million-dollar question, huh? Everybody on our group can really pass. We’re always open to going a little deeper. … Those five old guys have to play a lot. They came back to play a lot. And those two young guys have to play a lot. And when you divvy it up and you put it on the board and go, ‘All right, this guy’s gonna play 32 (minutes), he’s gonna play 34, he’s gonna play 32, he’s gonna play 25.’ I did it the other day and had 201 minutes. I was one over what I needed, and I thought I was kind of shaving it down a little bit. But you gotta keep everybody ready.”

“I love our freshman class maturity. I love J.R. (Konieczny), Tony (Sanders Jr.) and [autotag]Matt Zona[/autotag]. Those guys have all gotten better. They just have guys that are 22 and 23 in front of them that are really, really good players. So that’s a dynamic I have to manage if they’re not getting game minutes. I think J.R. has grown leaps and bounds. He’s become a better basketball player, not just a scorer. He’s active, he’s all over the place. When you think a year from now, and obviously, we have three kids that will sign in two weeks, I look at that and go, ‘OK, how are we going to keep some maturity around?’ “

“(J.R.’s) moving without the ball better. He’s always great with the ball, and he did this in Spain (during the Dream Team anniversary event). We sent him to Spain to invest in him. You don’t send a guy on a tour unless you think he’s gonna be a really good player for you. He was one of the leading rebounders over there, and he’s been one of our leading rebounders through 13 practices. He’s flying all over the place. He’s active, learned to become a better defender, sit down in a stance. He’s gained 20 pounds. … I just want to keep him fighting and scratching because this is a long five months here.”