Dana spotted up, had his hands and feet squared and shot with confidence. I was pleased with how our kids played with poise down the stretch. |
Every day is new challenge, and we have to get ready for our next one. |
I think we had a better percentage from the arc than we did inside the lane. We felt like we were good perimeter shooters, but we haven't demonstrated that ability all the time. But, when the defense gets extended, we have to be able to convert in the lane so other teams at least have to honor that. |
Justin was feeling it. We needed someone to step up and make a play, and he did that. It gave us a huge boost. |
Our pressure certainly was the key. The press got us some second-chance points. I thought Kyle Hackworth helped us out a lot. |
Smith is a ton, no question about it. We work in practice simulating what he does, but it's tough. Our kids did a great job limiting his opportunities in the second half. He wasn't a factor in the second half, but their inside game stepped up. |
That was a great basketball game. I thought our kids played with energy and purpose from start to finish. But so did our opponent. It was a great game to be a part of. |
There was that 3-4 minute period where we had opportunities inside and missed great looks and couldn't finish. We needed an answer at that point. |
They pressured us, and I thought we handled that pretty well. But the keys were their second-chance points and our inability to cash in on our chances in the second quarter. That, and they force us to play at a quicker pace than we wanted to at times. |
Usually, our defense keys up our offense. It's not that our effort wasn't there on the defensive end. We just needed to go up to the next level. |
We gave up some easy baskets early. We didn't want that to happen again, so we made some adjustments in the second quarter and were able to use our defense to get ourselves some easy baskets. |
We scratched and clawed, we just fell short. That's the bad part. Our kids played so hard and have nothing to show for it. This was fun, but it's never as enjoyable when you lose as when you win. |
We understand our size situation and we try not to make an issue of it. They did a good job utilizing their two post players. |
We've got to understand what it takes to finish games. What we haven't mastered is the ability to squeeze the lead and get the opponent buried. Give credit to Sycamore — they gave tremendous effort. |
When you don't shoot well, it magnifies any defensive flaw. |