Mike Francis Quotations

We know we have two more games and we have another shot.

We didn't want to slow it down, we were just tired of playing against a zone. I mean, we're the smallest team in the county and everyone plays us zone. We just wanted someone to play our style for once.

Old Mill's a tough team with their height, their length and their athleticism. After the county championship game, we wanted to get another shot at them and here we are. They won the first game, we won the second one, they won the third one and we'll see what happens in the fourth one.

Since there are no changes in the allotment of residences, I think it bodes well for the residents.

Free throws, free throws, free throws. We were short-handed and we couldn't sub as much as we wanted to. That's when we decided to go with Matt. We knew he could step in there and knock down some big shots.

We talk about expecting to win and wanting to win, and right now these kids want to win. There was no panic tonight. Our kids played hard and executed late on defense and got some key rebounds.

Rodney played one hell of a game. This was the best game he played against us in this whole series. The major difference tonight was he came to play. The two previous games combined he had 11 points.

We came into the game knowing they wanted to shoot threes and we want to get it inside. That was their biggest concern: Us scoring inside. Both times we played them previously, we scored 28 and 30 points inside. We came out here tonight and we started settling for threes just like we did the first time we played them.

When a team plays that kind of a zone against you, they're trying to take away your athleticism and make you stand around. We wanted Miguel to penetrate and get into the gaps. He did a good job of that in the second half. He really, really stepped up.

When the players found out that this team (the Cougars) was a straight man-to-man team, they were licking their chops. We felt like that is our style of play anyway. That's the first time we faced man-to-man all season. We like to get out and run and make things happen and we did that tonight.

When you play this slow tempo kind of game, every possession counts and any turnover is very costly. But towards the end, we made them come out on defense and beat them at their own game.

Everything these guys want to accomplish started tonight. They know that.

Coaches are trying to take the big guys away from the game with zone defenses. That's why athletes are more balanced now. There's a lot of guys that can beat you off the dribble, step outside if they need to and make things happen.

Anthony's been major for us right now. He's getting better and better every time we go out. We just have to get him the ball more.

The unity of this team is what made this team stick out. These guys worked their butts off in practice. It was always spirited and competitive - sometimes too competitive.

It seems like Murphy's Law in this place. It just feels good to get away with one, finally.

That motto was born out of telling the kids that we (the coaches) can talk about X's and O's all day, but they have to make their mind up that they want to get it done. I can't always call the plays that are going to work. Sometimes the kids have to take it upon themselves. No matter what it takes, no matter what we have to do, just get it done.

In terms of team unity, this was my strongest team ever. They really bought into to what we were preaching and their commitment to team work paid off in the end for us.

I don't think there's been a dominating big man in the league for the last two years.

The guys really responded to what we've been preaching. We're very proud of them. We told them that they would need to step up their intensity late in the season and they responded.