Frank Rossi Quotations

Nick won't have a big statistical line at the end of the night, but he played one of his best games of the year. When we were hesitant, he put his head down and got to the rim. That kind of play is contagious to teammates.

I feel like we took a couple of steps backward in the direction of our season. But we still have a couple of weeks left. There's still a long way to go between now and the state tournament and I'm confident the kids can come back and play the way we are capable of playing.

This was one of the more unselfish games we've played. The kids were looking for each other. Even the jayvees in the fourth quarter were looking to get the ball to those who hadn't scored. It was nice to see.

Going into this week, we felt it was important to win both of these games. We felt we were better than both of the teams we played, we felt we should win, and I'm happy that we did. It ought to boost our confidence.

He was everywhere on offense and defense. We struggled trying to stop him.

I think we're playing better and I think we're peaking at the right time of the year.

Our last three games with Hyde have been like this. So this was nothing new. I think we are playing with confidence now.

Matt did everything he could to bring us back all by himself. He's First Team All-Shoreline, there's no doubt about it.

We were never able to get into any kind of rhythm either offensively or defensively. I thought we particularly struggled at the guard position tonight.

We had no answer for Gonzalez. We switched defenses on him all night and made him work, but he had 31 points and won the game. He's the most talented scorer we've seen this year.

We had hoped to hold him under 20, but obviously we didn't do that.

We had a little more focus in the second half. Our defense was excellent. We held them to two field goals in the second half and our offense fed off our defense.

We had one of the poorest shooting nights of the season. We got down early and we were never able to bounce back. We made a little run at the end but there's only so much you can do.

(Westbrook) is a much-improved team from the first time we played them (a 57-26 T-Birds' win). I'm happy with the win but I'm not happy with the way we played, with a lack of aggressiveness getting the ball to the hoop. We couldn't finish them off.

We didn't feel like it was a safe lead, not against this team on the road.

The good news is we got 30 free throws. We hoped to do that by using our height advantage and we did. The bad news is we made only 14.

This was a big win for us. When you look back at the schedule it will just look like our fifth win in a row, but it took us (until) the last week of the season last year to get that eighth win. It shows the strides we've made as a team.

At this point we are starting to play more as a team. We've been waiting for that. And our seniors are taking ownership, which is also something we've been looking for.

Our shot selection wasn't very good. No doubt that hurt us.

Adam was our sixth man coming into the season, but he's got a chance to play more with an injury to another player and he's done a nice job.

They're the best team...the best five players overall in the Shoreline. I made the comment before...I don't think there are any spectacular talents on that team but as a team they do everything very well. They set screens, they execute their offense, they defend and they make open shots.

They made more baskets than we did, but we made more free throws and that's what won the game.

They out-rebounded us in the second half. That's how they got back in the game. But we made our free throws down the stretch and it was really Nick Comstock who won the game for us.

It was clearly Matt's most efficient 12 minutes of the season.

It was really a hard-fought, physical game. It was a fun game to coach. It didn't end well and the kids took it very hard, but it was a good basketball game.

I told them to be more aggressive. Westbrook's press gave us problems. But we also hurt ourselves by not being aggressive on offense. We settled for bad shots just as many times as we turned the ball over. We had a couple roll out but usually we were suffering from some bad shots.

That quarter set the tone. This was a close game after one -- North Branford led 13-11 at the first turn -- but with the 8-0 quarter, we took control. The momentum carried into the second half.

In retrospect, we won the game in the first quarter. We outscored them 19-6 and that turned out to be just enough of a cushion.

The game wasn't as close as that score might make it seem. We had a seven, eight point lead most of the way. But Hale-Ray competes, they fight and they kept coming at us. I think that's the best four-win team in the state.

The fourth quarter came down to just playing basketball. The guys played together and we put the ball in the hands of the right people.