Everything Notre Dame head coach Micah Shrewsberry said after ACC Tournament win over Pitt

Notre Dame men’s basketball survived and advanced to the second round of the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament on Tuesday, beating Pittsburgh 55-54. The Irish benefitted from a controversial foul call on the Panthers with half a second left, sending junior forward Tae Davis to the free throw line.

Here’s everything Notre Dame head coach Micah Shrewsberry said after the game.

Opening statement

Just hats off to Pitt for just a hard-fought game. [Pitt head coach] Jeff Capel, I said it after we played them a couple weeks ago, he’s a good coach, but he’s a great person, too. He’s been unbelievable with me this year, and really, we’re competitors, but there’s a brotherhood amongst coaches, as well.

It’s a tough way to lose there at the end in a hard-fought game. And we’ve played, I guess, three straight that have come down to the wire and have really been hard-fought. And it’s hard to say — like, for either team to accept defeat in those moments. So I completely understand what he’s going through.

But credit to them for playing really hard. Sometimes you need a little luck of the Irish.

On the satisfaction of Tuesday’s win

Yeah, for us, you get a chance to experience the first game of the conference tournament, the excitement of playing in the conference tournament, playing in a new venue for us, everything else.

I was really proud of our guys for how we defended. We didn’t shoot our best. I didn’t think we played tremendously well offensively, but I thought we guarded at a high level.

That’s what we talk about. At times this year, it hasn’t always been that way for us. We’ve really played through our offense. But I thought in order for us to come here and get a win, we really had to just be tough and gritty defensively. And I thought — despite giving up 110 in our last game — I thought the last few weeks we’ve been pretty tough and gritty defensively.

On Notre Dame making winning plays down the stretch

Yeah. We got some guys that — we have some freshmen that I think are going to be really good players for us. They each played throughout the game. But as the game gets closer and as the game gets tighter, there are some guys on our team that, like, when the horn hits zero, there’s a chance I could take my jersey off for the last time.

So I was going to roll with Nikita, I was going to roll with Julian Roper, and they both had some offensive rebounds down the stretch.

Tae has been doing that all year and going to the glass, but knowing that moment — we’ve played so many close games. We’ve had so many teachable moments. We watch film after every one of hey, this is — whether we win or lose, I remember showing one, we won a game, and — actually, no, we lost at Wake — but we got three shots at the end. And it was because those guys were going to the glass. Like, Sir [Mohammed] flew in and tipped it to Tae who kicked it out and got another rebound.

They’ve seen those last-second moments, and I think everything we’ve gone through this year has prepared us for close games at the end.

On Notre Dame’s final possession that ended in the controversial foul call

Yeah, I was worried about getting our guys in position. I didn’t want to use a timeout in order for them to kind of get their defense set. So I wanted to kind of play on the fly a little bit.

So my focus was on making sure we were in the right spot, making sure we had what we wanted to do, making sure we waited until the end and we didn’t shoot it too early, so they didn’t get an opportunity at the end. And then I was watching Markus [Burton], and I thought he had a pretty good chance of making it. He ended up kind of almost banking it in, but it ended up being a really good miss. So I saw Tae catch it and lay it in.

But yeah, I was prepared for overtime. We just played four of them. I was like, why not play another overtime game? So I was prepared for overtime until they said there was a foul.

Tae had been making free throws. Unfortunately I told him to miss that last one, or we’d have went perfect for the game.

On Charlotte native Sir Mohammed

Yeah, he’s going to be a really good player for us. He got hurt early in the season. And the times when you can grow as a player is a lot in those non-conference games as a freshman, and he missed those opportunities. So he didn’t come back until conference play. So he’s learning on the fly versus grown men at times in our league.

His ability to pass the ball, his ability to make plays off the dribble, he’s an unbelievable teammate. I look down and see — I thought he had another offensive rebound, but just some timely buckets. Just like, all right, this is — I think he’s going to be a really good player for us in pick-and-rolls, being a passer. But right now he’s kind of doing other things with Markus and with [Allocco]. So he’s cutting and getting lay-ups. He’s finding his way to help us in a lot of different ways.

You need that unselfishness, and I’m looking forward to him getting more games under his belt when he can get back here the next time and be really, really good for us.