At first, it wasn't easy for Isaiah last year. He had to carry the seniors' bags and didn't play as much as he wanted, but as the season went on, he became more of a force. By state, he was our leading scorer and hasn't looked back. |
Don Huston coached basketball at Curtis for years and once told me to let your athletes play, to give them free reign to perform. With Isaiah, I have to let him go because I couldn't reign him in anyway. He simply does things other kids can't do. |
He can score, he has great confidence, he's got great creativity, and I get criticized heavily for it, but I let him go. When you've got a thoroughbred, you've got to let him run. It's a green light for him. It's bright green. |
I've got a lot of unhappy kids in there. |
Man, that was fun to watch. Isaiah was our leader tonight. Everybody knew what was going to happen, but he has ice water in his veins. I couldn't be prouder of the leadership Isaiah displayed tonight. |
Playing at 9 a.m. is fine for us. We were able to practice at our gym this morning and felt good when we got here. Anyone who makes excuses about the time shouldn't be playing here. |
Teams have tried just about everything to take us out of our offensive rhythm and the things we've practiced or are used to. Fortunately, we've still had some success. |
That was an average game for Isaiah. He played well and was good about getting others involved. |
The lapse we suffered was from our attitude. We have a tendency to fall apart when we're behind, but today we were resilient. We showed a lot of heart coming back against a good team. |
This was like a duel in the desert. Isaiah, he's something else. |
We didn't deserve to win. We came in with a poor attitude. We didn't play hard. We hung our heads when things went bad. That's not what championship teams do. |
We were playing Prairie in the district tournament a week ago and we were down 32-15, just getting routed. Lorenzo came in and sat in the front row and guess what happened? I'm thinking of getting a little picture of him to just hold up. |
We've got some veteran kids who have been there and know how to finish. And we've got a guy who can take over out there. |
When he smiles and enjoys the game, I've never seen anybody better, ever. He's got 'it.' I don't even now how to describe 'it,' but he's got it. |
When Isaiah moves on to the next level, people will begin to appreciate his passing. I really believe he's a better passer than a shooter. He has unbelievable court awareness and sees things nobody else does. |