Phil Colicchio Kids Quotations

We thought we were quicker than they were and I thought we could wear them down. Defensively, we just had five kids coming at them the whole time. Offensively, Darrell is instant offense, L.J. stepped up tonight and I thought Charles Miller was outstanding.

My son and Marty's son (assistant coach Marty Luc) come to every practice. My son Tommy is 9 and Marty's son L.J. is 7. They can't come on the court until their homework is done. Sometimes, when we have a late practice I'll walk into my office and our players will be helping them with their homework. When we went on a trip to Pennsylvania over the holidays, our players would play with the kids in the pool or take them to the mall. Most high school kids don't want to deal with that, but this group is special. My son's favorite basketball player of all time is Desmond Wade.

Without a doubt this is our best defensive team. We have nine kids who can defend. Our guards can stop you and we have big men who came step out and defend. That's been a constant all year.

We set basketball back about 100 years in the first half. They shut down everything we tried to do and we shut down everything they tried to do. So in the second half, I played dumb. I told the kids to spread the floor, don't run any sets and just play basketball.

We seem to be getting better with each game, if that's possible. It's not amazing me that we're winning, but the margin of victory. These kids seem to be on a mission.

It seemed like every shot we took in the first half went in. But I told the kids at halftime that we couldn't continue to shoot like that and that defense was going to have to win it for us.