Tom Nelligan Quotations

Chris knows how to play within himself. He's going to make an excellent coach one day. He generally makes good decisions and really knows how to fill his (fifth) starter role.

He was the difference in the game. We were having a hard time against their zone, and we decided we needed a bit more of a scorer in there and he was phenomenal. He's a sophomore, but he played like a senior tonight.

He certainly has the talent. There was a handful of games this season where he's sparked us.

We aren't that big of a team. But I think we defend with a certain level of tenacity. I think we play a little bit bigger than we really are, too. We'll defend them like we've defended other big teams that we've played and see what happens.

When you're shooting the ball the way we were good things are just going to happen.

We had a hard time scoring today. We're not the type of team that's made to come back from a big deficit like that, and once we got down 13 or 14, it was hard to come back.

We have experienced guys who came out ready to play. You can tell if a team is ready to play by how hard they guard. We came out and did a good job defensively on them.

We have eight seniors. We have guys who've been through the wars and they know the program and what to expect. We'll need all those guys to be some type of role player.

Each case has to be looked at individually.

There's no doubt we need all these guys. We understand that the deeper you go into your bench this time of the year, the better you are going to be.

That's what you expect out of all-county kids. If they don't make plays, you don't win games like this. They're not afraid to fail.

They're big and strong. They have a couple of good big men around the basket and with their experienced guards, this should be a very good game.

It's business as usual. But we'll celebrate tonight.