Jon Murphy Quotations

We started hitting shots. You credit the guys for not panicking at halftime (and) sticking with it.

We're standing on the brink once again. You know, it's not easy, but it's better than the alternative.

Silver no longer. We are so proud of where we are from and what we accomplished.

I finally got the chance to empty my bench. It was a tremendous joy to do that, and it was like a burden had been lifted off our back.

(King) is a guy that in this tournament has been fantastic for us.

I think the entire game changed when we opened the fourth quarter with those back-to-back 3-pointers. For the first time all game, we finally had some momentum. We knew how good they were. We needed something to get us going, and those two threes did it.

Our goal does not change. We're going to go down there and try to win a gold ball.

That we can do it together. It's a great mom and pop business.

We can't focus on any one part of their game.

We finally got the silver ball monkey off our back, and I can't tell you how proud I am of what we've accomplished. It's these kids' championship, and those 32 minutes was theirs to come out and to earn something special.

We needed somebody to step up. Matt's been in that situation before, and he hit a few big shots for us, and hit the free throws. We did what we had to do to advance.

We are so proud of everything we've accomplished. Our attitude was just to stick with it and get back here. We fought our way back and earned this gold ball.

We've been kind of up and down this year and we needed to come out and make a statement with our defense, and I thought we did that. (We) just didn't give them anything easy. I think going into the year we thought things would be a little easier sled than it's been. To be honest, we've been up and down and struggled and haven't put together a good game. I thought today we put together four good defensive quarters. This was a start for us.

It was about sticking to their shooters and making Scott Gillespie earn it. The way Ripon plays and the way they're coached, they play pretty well. And they just kept coming.

It was a huge win. For us to come here and take this and get back to the finals again is a pretty impressive feat.

The third quarter was some kind of blitz. I thought we would be able to pull away from them and then, boom, the game turns on a dime. We knew we would be in for a battle the rest of the way, and sometimes you grind it out and make it happen.

This is a team of pieces. It is kids understanding their roles and playing as a team. Doing whatever it takes to come out on top at the end.

They're very similar to us. They're a team of role players and I think it'll be a very good game.

It's a thrilling ride for the coaching staff. And it's a new group of kids each year. You always shoot to make it to the state tournament once or twice in your career. We almost feel unjust that we've been there seven times in a row.

These things are not easy to get. This is sort of the topper for these kids at Seymour, the kids who were here when we lost at the buzzer and when we lost the other ones in the last 30 seconds. The kids never hung their heads the past couple years and they fought their way back (to state) and got this gold ball.

I may look into it. I am not sure if there is any interest there or not. There is a lot of speculation that there is interest there, but I have not heard that from them.

You win two games and you go home with the gold ball.