Bob Punter Quotations

We want to come out and play like it's 26-24 and we're playing a huge game down the road. We need to have 32 minutes of good, solid effort and focus.

Scott and Rob (Hummel) realize that if they want to play Big Ten basketball, they can't stay where they are. (Martin) already has a pretty well-proportioned body, but he still has a high school body as opposed to what you see in a Big 10 game from 6-8 players. He could put 20 more pounds on his chest, and he'll be impossible to handle. And I could be really smart.

One team's (18-3) and one team's (16-3). Contrary to what people might think, other teams practice besides ours and enter the game with the will to win also.

But we couldn't get 60. It's a matter of getting looks for other people, getting chances for other guys to put a few points on the board to augment the 30, 35 that (Scott) Martin and (Rob) Hummel get. They've pretty much gotten their points all the way through.

I feel that text messaging defeats the purpose of the rule. Coaches aren't supposed to be talking to recruits on the phone, but they're still communicating with text-messaging. The spirit of the rule is so kids are not constantly talking on the phone, but now they're constantly text-messaging, and it's time consuming. They are constantly doing this stuff instead of whatever they have to do or want to do.

There are a lot of similarities. But a lot of differences, too.

Martin's just too good. They couldn't guard him.

(Martin's) been getting 28 or so the last five or six games on the average, but Hummel really showed up. That's the nice thing about having two D-I guys. If one guy doesn't quite get it all done the other kind of steps up.

Martin did a good job on Novak, and we defended Bradford pretty well. Our kids really came to play in the first quarter ... and with Kyle back that really makes us tough to defend.

That was the best defensive effort we've had against us that I can think of. We didn't quite have our way in the low post as we have all year. We didn't get a lot of good looks, and when we got good looks, we didn't make them. Shots that we made all year, we missed.

That was a key moment in the game.

I was pleasantly surprised with how well our kids defended. We made it awfully tough for Novak and Bradford to shoot.

I was more concerned about the (defensive) end of the floor. I don't know if we had the zip we needed in the third quarter, but we picked it up and finished strong defensively.

Windsor made some big plays for us in the third quarter. I like him because he's a kid who when it gets tough, he plays well.

We played like all five of us were sick. We were getting out-rebounded, out-hustled, out-everything, so I spent a lot of time screaming during our first timeout.

We played awful, I thought - just awful. Right now, I'm concerned about several things.

We were getting away with things early in the season, but then teams scouted us and started taking them away. The thing is we didn't play our best game and we still won by (22).

We had some hard practices this week. We had a good zip in on (Thursday's) practice. We didn't show it in the first half, but we did in the third quarter.

We tell our kids, it's not baseball, you don't take turns. You get the ball to the guy who needs to get it. They defended us in a way to take away Scott and Rob (Hummel) and make other guys score. They didn't let us do what we wanted to do.

Credit Merrillville, they played hard and with a lot of enthusiasm. They've got good quick kids and they're 14-3 for a reason.

The thing that bothers me is we just had too many passes that they touched, and we can't do that. We did too many things that made it look like we hadn't practiced.

For all the people that think we should lose a game so we can be better in the (state) tournament, this is for them. I don't believe that.

It's obviously the first time our guys have been in a game in the fourth quarter. Did we react well? I don't know. We tried to hold the ball with a one-point lead and didn't do it.

It's been pretty remarkable. We've had seven or eight games where all the guys who've suited up scored. We might only have nine in those games, but they're doing something.

That's a badge of honor for our coaching staff. From six minutes on, I thought we played well defensively and showed good character on our part.

They have two pretty good players, but we have two very good players. Hummel is obviously a very good player, and we encouraged him to do a little more shooting-wise.

I realized he was scoring a lot, but not that many. It wasn't all just standing and shooting. He was working hard.

He played great. He's pretty important to us, too. He did an excellent job on both ends of the floor.

The good thing is we've enjoyed the season. We'll see what happens now in the postseason.

Am I disappointed? Yes. Am I disappointed in the kids? No.