Joel Dunn Quotations

We were in a little bit of a tight spot late. Austin had fouled out, Sam had four fouls and with 1:50 to go, AJ fouled out. Fortunately, Rickey made a nice play for us and I had to have Stephan, who hasn't played at all for us, come in and inbound the ball. We were up by five when AJ went out and every time it looked like we had them buried, they'd hit a big shot.

He helps us a lot just with his experience and presence. He started every game last year and having him out there kind of has a mellowing affect on all of us. He's not fully in basketball shape yet, but having him back helps us.

We talked a lot about their big guy -- he can score 30 points a game. We sort of picked our poison and said let's defend him as best we can and know where their two best shooters are and hope they don't get hot.

I think we had a nice size advantage, which is always a big help. McMinnville is disciplined and they always play hard and don't make many mistakes. They never seem to beat themselves.

We were 1 for 9 (shooting) in the first quarter and a lot of our shots were too fast and we jacked it up. I think the second quarter we mellowed out and relaxed and ran the offense.

We really weren't ready to go from the tip. We tried to make some passes that were too difficult, and I think nerves were a factor. I think our guys knew this was an important game for us.

We've been kind of a skeleton crew all year. It's had an affect on us from the start, but we're hoping we'll get everyone back soon. Our goal is to try and improve our level of play the rest of the way.

They still did it (came flying in), but we did a better job of getting a piece of them as they flew in.

After those initial mistakes, we kind of relaxed and ran our offense better.

In the first half we made too many mistakes. We had those 12 turnovers and honestly, the coaches felt we were lucky to be tied.

In that respect, we feel good about our progress. We can feel like we're getting better.

The coaches were pleased with a lot of parts of that game. I hope it's steering us toward these important league games next week (McMinnville and Tigard). We've had a lot of bum luck so far with injuries, guys quitting, and we've got a guy who's out of the country, so we've been playing mostly with seven guys. That's been tough.