Brian Voyles Quotations

We're really going to need some kids to step up for us next year. The thing about Armon is that he didn't just score for us. He did so many things for us. And we were going to ask him to do even more next year.

We tried our best to keep the ball out of J.J.'s (Mulligan) hands and we knew if somebody else stepped up, we could lose. Well, somebody else did step up. He (Van Allen) played a great game.

We were cheering for Reno (the Huskies beat Galena 55-52 on Thursday). We wanted an all-Sierra League final.

When things get tough, Armon is the type of kid who is just going to get mad and come at you harder. He's always going to compete. That's what I appreciate about him the most. He's never going to hang his head. He knows there are things he needs to work on to make himself better and he will.

McQueen fought. I was impressed with how hard they played. It was a hard-fought, good high school game.

Going away from here for a while will be real important for his development. It will really be his first taste of national competition.

He was so close to having a bad game. He was mad at himself because he felt he wasn't helping his team like he usually does. It just wasn't happening for him tonight. But he stuck to it and he reached down and he came up with that big shot. That was huge for him and for us.

I think we were too emotional to start the game. We got that big lead more on emotion than substance. And once the emotion wore off, we struggled.

(Johnson) had a couple of streaks where he would put up eight points in a matter of 45 seconds. He had some big moments; he'd get his points in bunches.

We shouldn't have won that game. Carson outplayed us. We got lucky and hit some free throws. Our players weren't playing hard. This is not a team. We're in trouble. Take nothing away from Carson. They played hard. We didn't respond.

We called a timeout (trailing 71-65 with 1:45 to go) and coach (Charles) Walker had the words that mattered the most. He just said, 'Ball pressure. Put pressure on the ball.' And that's what we did.

We talked to him about finishing the school year here. A lot of people offered to take care of him. But family is family. Armon just wanted to be with his family.

Armon was such a fun kid to coach. I've never had a kid who worked so hard on his game. He's a special kid. We're really going to miss him.

Royce (Rowe) did an unbelievable job guarding him on that play. He went for the first fake, had to gather himself and go laterally to his left to get back in his face and he did it. That was a great athletic play.

It's going to be good for him to get away. He's going to have to learn how to play when he's not the man, when other guys are demanding the ball all the time. That will force him to learn how to do other things than just score. It will be an important time for him.

It's not going to be easy for someone to step up and do the things Armon did. The other thing is that, counting our overtime games, he probably averaged 32 minutes a game for us.

They both had great years. They were the two best players in the league.

It was just a lot of little things. A rebound there, a steal here, a missed shot there. You know, playing Reno is such a tough game for us. When you play them you have to focus so hard. They just have so many weapons. You can't have any lapses against them. We have to guard (the 6-foot-7 Mulligan) with guys who are 5-8 and 5-9. It's tough for us.

I have no doubt that he has the ability and the drive to do whatever he wants to do in this game. I would never put any limits on what he can accomplish.

In the last year I've been very impressed by how much he's matured. He truly understands how to act now, on and off the floor. He knows how important grades are.

He started out hot. He had a solid game.

I didn't sleep for two days thinking about this game. Reed has too many good shooters.

He's no longer a junior. After tonight he's a senior.

The football players brought a toughness to our team, especially to our drills in practice. We used to think that our drills were pretty tough but with these guys, we found that we could make them even tougher.