Every night, if we need a lift, someone has given it to us. It seems like it's someone different each night. |
I thought we came out in the first half extremely focused and very intense. Defensively they never did have any easy passes, and we were able to convert on some turnovers to give us a little bit of lead. |
It's interesting, I know that. I don't know if I'd say it's fun. It would be nice if we had another in double-figures, but we almost always have something interesting to talk about. |
Like everyone else, they wanted to take Hope and Maria out of the game. I told the girls earlier today that someone is going to get open shots. |
Our girls are pretty level headed. They know even though we have beaten them by double digits all three times, last two games were two-point games at halftime. I don't think overconfidence will be a problem. |
She was just the dominant player out on the floor. They tried to go zone for a while and she hit a 3-pointer. They tried to go man-to-man - but it didn't matter what they did. Hope was able to get the ball into the paint, and at 5-9, she gets up over a lot of guards guarding her, and she gets a good look at the basket. Today, she was just knocking them down. |
She's done that for us all year. She's been a workhorse for us underneath. |
The one thing about this team is they go out every night and expect to win. You can't teach that. It doesn't matter who the opponent has been. They aren't cocky or look past anyone or anything like that, but they expect to win every time they go out on the floor. |
There's talent, yes, but they had to improve. I don't know if we really expected to win the state tournament. Getting to state was our goal, and we played well that weekend. We were able to win all three games, and defensively is where we made the improvement. |
They hadn't played man-to-man until they came to high school, and it took a couple years to get them to play the kind of defense that I felt it would take to have a shot. This year they got to the point where they didn't like to go to zone. But the last couple years they would rather play zone than man-to-man. |
We were slugging it out back and forth. Thankfully, they didn't get in the last punch. |
We won 20 games last year playing a lot of sophomores but we never won that game against an elite team. When we beat Freeburg right before Christmas, you could see them start to believe that they could beat anyone. And when we beat T-Town, you could tell that they really believed. |
We'll get a half-hour shoot-around on the Redbird Arena floor, and that's great for all the teams to get acclimated. Unless you've been there before, there's not too much else you can prepare for. |
We're not a very big team. Rebounding will be key for us. |
We're pretty excited. I don't really know what to expect. |