Quotes by John Kuckel

“If we could sustain the effort we got in the second half for an entire game, wed be all right. In the final 16 we played our butts off, but tonight Hyde hit their open looks and free throws, and we didnt box out well enough the entire game to limit their second chances.”

“Our focus the last two or three days in practice has been stopping people. Thats all we talked about coming in. We wanted to be able to defend and I thought we defended as well as we could in the first half.”

“It was a physical game and we saw that in the first quarter and we talked about it in the huddle. We like ourselves in a physical game. We think we have some big guys that can bang.”

“In the past weve been running the floor just in spurts, today we consistently got up and down the floor. We try to get the big guys down the floor and Sullivan, Pratt and Sierpinski did a great job of that today. Were a much more dangerous team when were getting up and down in transition then when were playing slow.”

“Thats really the defensive effort weve been looking for all season. Hopefully, its a sign of us coming together. Its our first road win and were at the point in the season where we badly needed it. The kids realized that and showed up with a slightly different mentality then weve had the last couple of games and it showed on the court.”

“I say this game was very indicative of our season...really up and down. We played a great first half and it seemed like we got a little comfortable in the second half.”

“Give Westbrook credit. Those kids play hard. They dont quit. They did the same thing to us at our place when they got us. They play tough wire-to-wire. They could have rolled over. Teams are well-coached in this conference and they all play hard every night. And if you dont play hard for 32 minutes youre not going to get a W.”

“Unfortunately, we finished one game short of where we wanted to be. The seniors did a nice job with the situation they had. They had a new coach come in pretty late in the game. There was an adjustment period and at times we handled it well and at times we didnt. We have a great group of younger guys coming up. Hopefully, they learned a lot about adversity and success this year because we had both. Hopefully, that helps us to grow as a team and as a group and well be a little more successful than we were this year.”