John Loftin Quotations

We're in a perfect situation. All we have to do is take care of business. I felt like if we had won at Cooper we could still win district. Now we can get in a playoff spot, but there are a lot of possibilities left.

What makes it rough on us is we have to go to Raquel so much. Everything they do is double-teaming the basketball so they're not going to let anybody keep the ball very long. They scouted us last game so they're not going to let her do much.

We're going to look at the teams who are second and third in (District 4-5A) and prepare for both of them.

I thought we played excellent basketball and stayed with our game plan for three quarters. We've got kids that don't have enough playing experience. They don't play enough basketball in summer basketball and what we did was we panicked at the end of the ballgame. Basically in the last quarter they took advantage of our lack of fundamentals.

We really need to go over and get a win, or we'll be behind. Cooper has a good team, but we feel good about the way we're playing.

We play against that type of game plan all the time. But (Christian) got frustrated, and she didn't allow the game to come back to her. Her shot was flat, and I think she forced the issue. She pushed herself into the game instead of letting the game come to her.

We can't simulate (Coronado's press) in practice or nobody else can because they spend 70 to 90 percent of their time in practice working on it. The kids are shocked when they see it. Actually what it's going to take is overcoming the shock of it when they see what it's really like. Then they jump on you and if you can recover from it then you're OK. Most teams don't recover.

We figured out if they want to play a low-scoring game we'll play a low-scoring game. All we want is a win anyway.

This game is the biggest game we've had all year long. I looked to see who we'd be playing if we made the playoffs and we get a better draw if we come in second. It's going to be a difficult game to win. Odessa High will hold the ball and keep the score down.

It's going to be a grudge match. We beat them by one earlier this year, so they'll be looking for payback. And, of course, we'd like to win our own tournament for these seniors.

You tell kids to run over the holiday, but they never do. (Christian) was tired, but I couldn't take her out -- not with (McAllen) being so close to us.

I really am (surprised). The reason for that is they don't have much post play. They have good athletes and tremendous shooters. I think they'll take some hits in the second round. They won some close games. Before the season's over, that's liable to balance out.