Everything Bill Courtney said after First Conference Win of the Season
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CORAL GABLES, Fla. — The Miami Hurricanes men's basketball team (5-17, 1-10 ACC) picked up their first conference win of the season and the first Power Five win in nearly a full calendar year as they defeated the Notre Dame Fighting Irish (10-11, 4-6 ACC) in one of its best defensive performances of the year.
Interim Coach Bill Courtney finally had a positive thing to say after the game after snapping the losing streak but also kept calm as there are still a few more games into this season.
Opening Statement...
Our kids have fought through so much. You know beginning last year-end the season struggles this year uh we kept trying to just keep the group together and uh preach them to keep fighting stick together fight through adversity and everything's going to work St out if we just keep sticking to the course.
On the team's defensive performace...
Well you know what's funny is actually we weren't bad in the first half defensively. We started it in the first half with our defenses being a little bit better. We weren't scoring that was the issue we weren't making shots we were turning the ball over a little too much and I think it affects our guys when we don't score. They look at as you know get downward trajectories to get downtrodden and stuff but we continue to fight and that was the message at the halftime just continue to fight to go to chip away one stop at a time it's not going to be on offense there are no 12-point shots so you have to chip away one stp at a time and I thought that's what we did in the second half so you had 11last well definitely always is like we want to get value our possessions and I thought you know first half we dribbled a little too much and got ourselves in trouble in some situations do we have six at halftime I think we might even had six at halftime um but we tried to explain to the guys that the more we pass the ball and move it we're going to be in much better shape if we try to dribble through a crowded lane cuz they were trying to pack the paint on us and so you know we did that in the second half.
On Seizing the moment...
Well is what I've been talking about a lot of times lately uh this team has to seize on the moment right whether it's offense or defense those key possessions that we need to have um we got to take advantage of and I thought we did that tonight we took advantage of ke possession and that was huge for us got the crowd into the game crowd was tremendous tonight unbelievable support from our our group you know we've been in such a losing streak and to have this kind of support and the crowd help us win that basketball game.
On Divine Ugochukwu stellar game...
He was absolutely terrific. He got his third foul early in the second half and DJ Irving told me to leave him in and I'm like oh man. If he gets his fourth foul we're done because he was playing great in the first half guard Markus Burton, getting in the paint and we decided to leave him in and he rewarded us for it he made some of his free throws it's good.
Message to the team after the game...
I told those guys you know we won the game cuz we deserved it right we fought through all this adversity we showed up every day to work um and that's the way we got to continue to do it can't stop here we got to continue to work continue to fight and we'll put ourselves in good shape.
Importance of Matthew Cleveland...
It's hard for me to take him and Brandon Johnson out the game because they do so many things for our team uh and you know I think he was out for like two minutes but they went on a scoring run and so we got him back in there quickly. He's playing the best basketball of his career he's doing exactly what we ask him and most importantly he's showing great leadership he's helping the young guys he's really starting to grow into that role. It's hard because he's only been in a year and a half. so it's hard to immediately be the person that's you know kind of guiding people and telling them what to do so he had to grow into that role and you know when coach retired I kind of sat down with him and challenged him to do that. He's a quiet person by nature but he's very intelligent and so you know I challenge Matt to be a leader to help these young guys help all these new guys you know what we want so you got to encourage them to do the right thing.
READ MORE FROM MIAMI HURRICANES ON SI:
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Justice Sandle is a graduate of Mississippi State University earning a Bachelor of Arts and Science in Communications with a concentration in Print and Digital Journalism. During his time in Starkville, he spent a year as an intern working for Mississippi State On SI primarily covering basketball, football, baseball, and soccer while writing, recording, and creating multimedia stories during his tenor. Since graduating, he has assumed the role of lead staff writer for Miami Hurricanes On SI covering football, basketball, baseball, and all things Hurricanes related.