Brian Brandtner Quotations

We're starting to figure out our groove a little bit better on offense -- what we're looking to give, what we're looking to do. When you get the shots you want, a lot more times than not you're going to score.

We're going to have to play better than we did tonight. Jackson, they looked probably better than anybody in the tournament out there tonight. I coached under (Jackson coach) Darrin (Scott) at Notre Dame. I know how good of a coach he is, how well he prepares and so hopefully my boys can outplay his boys. That's what it's going to come down to.

He made huge strides this year. His footwork came a long way. His sense of a team game came a long way. You can play in the park all day long and not think about defensive positioning or offensive spacing. All that stuff was introduced to Will for the first time this year and I thought he did a phenomenal job of grasping those concepts. He's quick learner and that really speaks volumes for him.

He's a stud. One of the first games of the year he hurt his thumb, but played through it. That affected his shot, but he's turned it up.

He was really hitting some tough shots early. He's such a great jump shooter. He really elevates off the floor. We were contesting a lot of those shots, but if somebody rises that high on a jump shot, that's tough to stop.

He can really be a presence. When Brandon figures out how to grind it out and how to play hard with high intensity all the time, he's really going to be a handful.

He is the most dominant player in the area. Ask any coach that played against us how much they had to game plan against him. Any coach that says he doesn't want him is a liar.

I think the fans are probably looking forward to it more. I could care less who we play.

I thought we got a lot of good looks on offense. We ran the floor well. We looked opposite and that got the defense moving. We took a lot of open shots in rhythm and more times than not, you're going to knock them down.

I thought we executed best toward the end. We executed well down the stretch.

I thought we came out and played hard; we guarded well and got the ball down the floor. We really looked to push the ball a lot more, and I thought we were successful in doing that.

I thought we came out and did the little fundamental things that help you win. We jumped the ball on defense, rebounded, guarded the ball pretty well most of the night and ran the court fairly well.

I thought our man offense (Tuesday) was a little bit better than it had been. We still need a little more movement -- guys are still figuring out when to come off screens, when to set screens. But, that's what we've got this last month of the season to get ready for. Come March, hopefully we'll be ready for that.

Jeff won the game for us tonight, I don't think there's any doubt about that. Jeff played great. He carried us. He hit the big shots when we needed it. He got the big rebounds when we needed them.

Jeff was willing to make the sacrifices necessary to help the team. When your leader at the top is like that, everyone else has to buy in.

Jeff really came out early and got us going.

Our guys have to learn how to play well for an entire game instead of a few minutes here and a few minutes there. Luckily, we were able to play good enough just long enough to win today.

Our guys are tough. They got a lot of heart. I love the way we play. We didn't give up. We came roaring back and I thought we were maybe going to jump in the driver's seat for a minute. Jackson stopped that. Tonight, it just seemed like the breaks went their way, but good teams make their breaks and they made some tonight. They put it on us.

Our rebounding was a big edge in this game.

That's a tough one. You lose a tough game like we do tonight and you got to gear back up and play a great team like Charleston. I hope we're capable of that.

Will did a great job tonight of really leading our break. He got a lot of defensive rebounds and just started going down the floor. ... Just great looks down the floor and if Will gets us out and going in transition like that, we're tough to beat.

We're deeper than I showed tonight. I just felt with their size advantage and the pressure they were putting, I had to have fewer guys in the game. They're deep. They can come at you with a bunch of big bodies and coach Scott uses them well. They crashed the boards, got up and down and they played a great game.

We played pretty well in spurts. It was a game of spurts, and I guess our last spurt was just barely good enough to win.

We came out and shot the ball like we can. We've done it a couple of times this year, but I thought we had a lot of good looks and we knocked a lot of them down tonight.

We made a point to get the ball into Will and the guys could cut off him. When we did that we had a lot of success.

We came here for one reason. To win a state championship.

We've got to come out here and play our butts off (against Puxico). We can't give up rebounds like we did tonight. We can't give up as many points as we did tonight. I thought Advance did a good job of scoring a lot of points. They got a lot of rebounds against us. We're going to have to play our A game.

We tried to stay with him all night. I thought every 3-pointer they took was contested.

We turned it over a couple times when we shouldn't have, and we missed some shots.

We didn't have the flow we wanted the first half as far as getting up the floor, that's a strength of our team. But we still persevered.

I've been a nervous wreck, to be honest, these last couple of days up here. But I knew once the tip-off came, I'd be fine.

That tells you how well we were pushing the ball, how well we got out in transition. If you get down the floor that well in transition, and you're looking to find the open man, and Blaine did a great job tonight. He had 11 first-half assists that we had counted. That's just huge. Blaine did a great job of seeing the floor and getting the ball to who needed it tonight.

This is an unbelievable feeling just knowing you're down to the final four. I've never been there. A lot of the kids have and that's a benefit to the team. I haven't been there, but I know what it takes to win it.

This is probably one of the most talked-about games around that I can remember.

They've been all showing great leadership. This senior group, I credit these guys with how we play.

They seemed to make them all, and we seemed to miss them all.

They penetrated and we helped off, and he hit a couple of big shots. He hit the shots when they needed it.

They're a phenomenal team. They've got a very athletic 6-11 kid. They've got great guards that can all score, shoot and handle the ball. ... We're going to go give them our best effort and see if we can't sneak a win out.

At halftime, we look and we?re not in foul trouble, so we know we?re going to get after it and wear them down in the second half.

That just speaks volumes of how deep of a team we are. On any other team, a lot of these guys all would probably be first team. ... It's a heck of an accomplishment for our team. It's a great personal accomplishment for those guys that made it. Hard work paid off.

It's so tough to get there, so many things have to work in your favor. I've seen a lot of great teams not make it, and teams that shouldn't have made it work hard and get there. It's been the goal of my life to get there and win a championship. That's the thing we're trying to stress is you have to seize the moment.

The big guy (Bogan) came in and D.D. (Gillespie) left and that kind of created a void at the guard spot. Jeff was willing to let his numbers take a hit for a while until he figured everything out and the team figured everything out.

It was one heck of a game. Puxico came out and played their butts off. They gave us everything they had and we were lucky enough to come out on top.

I want to give Verona credit, they came out and played extremely well. I think that's a sign of what a great team's about. We weren't exactly on our game and they played their best game, and we still came away with a 10-point win.

Not winning, second place doesn't make you feel good. Our goal was one thing, to win it all.

Anytime you can come out and jump on somebody, that kind of puts you in the driver's seat. You're looser, you're not as tight, you're not forcing things as much. When we jump out on that lead, we seem to play pretty good with that.

That second half, we seemed a little sloppy. Our help defense wasn't quite what it needed to be. We were reaching a little bit more than we needed, not moving our feet (or) bending our knees. But, when you've got 60 points in the first half, I guess that can happen from time to time in the second half.

I love this team. These guys are so unselfish. They don't care who gets the credit, they just want to win.

He's really bought into the man-to-man defense, and really turned into a leader. He's always guarding the other team's top player, and at times carries the team on his shoulders on defense. He's such a leader by example, such a great kid to have around.