Dennis Ruedinger Quotations

More than anything, I'm impressed with Rayfield. He's a tremendous player. Not only is he a great shooter, I think he relishes the big shots. He likes to take them and he likes to be a factor in big games.

Peter is just a quality kid. You can see there is a lot of love for his brother. You could see it last year in his face with the concern he had and still does for his younger brother.

One thing I want us to do is be fresh, because we've played a lot of games in the last month-in-a-half. I want our guys to be focused and ready to go and fine tune some things.

I wouldn't say they run any set offense. It's a lot of different things. If they get in transition, they try to beat you down the court. They run some 1-4 low sets on offense, they run some high-lows. Other than that it's pretty much a motion offense.

I am so proud of this team. The thing about this team is they don't want to let one another down. They play for each other.

(Catholic Central) can test you in a lot of ways. They have an inside game, they have height, and the adjustments we had to make to combat those things put emotional and mental stress on us.

He scored four points with his right hand on Saturday. A lot of people don't notice that, but I notice that because that's been one of his weaknesses and he works to correct that. And those are four big points. That might have been the difference between us going to Madison and staying home.

What we want to do is what we've done all year. We aren't going to re-invent the wheel with one day of practice. So we'll focus on what we do today and fine tune a few things. We just want to run our system as well as we can.

He seems to be doing all right. We're hoping by (today) he'll be able to do some light workouts and get some shooting in. It looks like he'll be on pace to do that. We'll be able to go pretty solid on Wednesday and Thursday with him.

It certainly doesn't get old. As you progress through a season, you grow closer and closer to the guys on the team. Each season is its own entity. Watching your team grow and get better, that never gets old.

I think the whole key to the game was how we executed on offense. We seemed to become a perimeter team early in the game and that's just not our style. Ripon was able to take advantage and start to pull away. When we decided to play solid defense and attack the basket on offense, we were able to make a run.

That's what a lot of teams do. We have good inside players. They try to take it away. When they do, we have to take what the defense gives us. They stepped up and hit some great shots.

I was real happy with our defense. We gambled a little bit more than I liked. I think our ball pressure and denial defense was pretty good especially this time of the year. I told the kids to go out, attack the boards, and lay it all on the line.

We aren't going to change a whole lot. Our offense lends itself to getting the ball inside so it's something we try to do every game so I'm sure we'll do the same on Thursday.

We didn't shoot well from the free throw line and I don't think we had a team execute like Marshfield Columbus did against us all year. In the first half they were executing their offense very well and we were able to maintain our focus and composure just enough to get them off rhythm a little bit. Once we did, I thought our guys really sensed it and they pounced on it pretty good.

Things seem to be going very well. He had his surgery last year and everything I know is just fine.

The thing about Isaiah is that he's not only a good offensive player, but he can really be a great defensive player at times too and really helps us out with rebounding. When he does all that he's one of the best players around.

Sometimes scoring can be a bad indicator with the way you are playing. In the game of basketball, teams make runs and you hit shots in bunches. Though we got down early, in our system we were executing it pretty well. We were just hoping they weren't going to be keep hitting the shots they were.

They were good shooters and good shots, but, unfortunately, they didn't fall.

It's going to be hard to keep him off the court. He loves to play the game. He stepped up and started to hit some huge shots in the third quarter. All our guys love to compete. That's why it's so fun to be together.

It'll never get to be old hat. Our guys are very excited.

They can test you in a lot of different ways.

They like to be an aggressive attacking team with the dribble. They set a lot of ball screens. They post up pretty active and athletic, so they'll be a good challenge for us.

I hope they are very proud of their accomplishments. They had a great year.

I hope there's more of a sense of urgency just because we wanted to play better. This was our next chance to see if we have taken a step and see if we can execute some of the things we haven't been able to throughout the course of the year.

I just cherish the years I've been able to spend with him. He's a super kid. I know he has a 3.96 grade point average and is sixth in his class. He's just a class act in every sense of the word.

I'm just so proud of my kids. Grit and determination tonight. We showed an incredible amount of toughness and we weren't clicking the best and we found a way to dig deep and find a way to beat a very good team.

I know he saw him turn his back and saw a good opportunity to go and he did and he made a great play.

I pretty much let our training staff take care of the training. They tell me when he's OK to play and I put him out there. We have a very good training staff. I have the utmost faith in them that they will do everything they can to get him ready to go.

I don't know if you can accomplish much of anything other than for the kids that haven't been here to get a chance to see what it looks like.

I do know our kids will get focused again and give it everything they've got. I'm sure this group will be ready to lay it on the line again Saturday and see if it's good enough.