S. Walker Last Quotations

There are more teachers here than there were last year. We spread the message out a little bit more.

Maine's won three in a row and they're shooting the heck out of the basketball. They're shooting 53 percent from three in the last three games so those guys are on fire right now. We just happened to catch those guys on two nights when they didn't shoot it very well.

Last year was huge for us. I think it has put a little pressure on this year's team. But that's all right. We had our first winning season last year and it was just a great year.

Buffalo earned their repetition off what they did last year,

Baron went (to state) last year. As he said all year it'd be a lot more fun if he had people going with him. So put the pressure on him. He's got to qualify in the 100 and get some relays qualified with him also.

We made some mistakes to let this thing get to where it was, but last time I looked, we had more points on the scoreboard. We were playing a top-15 team in the country, and that's no small achievement. It wasn't a work of art, but we won.

Last year I missed a free throw in a game against East. Just one, but we were down by two. So every single game now, I practice my free throws. I shot about 100 free throws this morning so just in case a situation like that came up in this game, I could knock them down.

Last summer was the return of the vest,

Our kids have to deal with the neighborhood thing - Westside and all. We had our turn last year.

Our intensity level went down and that made our defense go down. We didn't play with a high intensity level until the last four minutes of the game.

Our last compensation discussion detailed a proposal that on average would have made Nate one of the five highest paid active NBA coaches,

It felt like the monkey is off my back. When I hit that ball, it was a great feeling. Coach Butler (hitting coach Todd Butler) told me, 'You can't go 0- for-the-rest-of-your-life.' I know that. I experienced it last year. I was 0 for awhile then finished the year strong.

I think honestly our defense is better at this point than last year. Why? Because of No. 97.

We had four turnovers last week, ... That's not going to put you in a position to win. We've had a lot of penalties off and on this year. We need to cut down on all of those things. You can't win doing that and our kids know that. We just have to keep on working.

We wanted to make sure we didn't have another loss here. We wanted to finish undefeated in conference. We didn't want to have any upsets like we did last year. We came out focused.

We have two outstanding coaches who will lead our team to success in an exciting and challenging competition. This meet will be a significant test for our team. Not only are we are facing our biggest rivals in their backyard, but this is also the last opportunity these athletes have to test themselves on a major international stage before the Beijing Olympics.

Unfortunately we couldn't make a stop or get a score in the last few minutes. We should have won the game but we didn't. There was certainly a comfort level that shouldn't have been there.

We really don't feel like we're out of a game this year. And that's something different than last year.

We've been a pretty good offense over the last five years, and I don't anticipate us not being a good offense,

We have actually used his swing over the last couple years to teach our guys. We like the way that he uses his lower half. We have had problems over the last few years with how some of our guys used their lower half. They were basically beat before they started.

We wish we could have started the second half better. We dug ourselves into a hole. But these last five, six weeks, we've played great.

We certainly are playing a lot better since the last time we were home. We need to carry over what we've done so well on the road.

Sometimes, I know as coaches we've been frustrated over the last couple years. But the kids have kept working hard and made progress. The program's growing. We're proud of the results. Not satisfied, hopefully we'll do better next year. But I'm pleased with the progress we've made the last couple years.

People are stopping me on the street, ... Most people would drive by me the last few years and give me the obscene gesture. Now they're saying, 'Hey coach, great win.'

As far as the standings go, this game didn't mean much. But it meant a lot to us, just to prove to ourselves and to everyone else that we could beat them. They beat us this year, last year and ended our season in the playoffs last year. So we were starting to wonder when we were going to catch a break against those guys. That's why this game is so big for us.

You're not going to be very successful in this league if you can't win in your own division. We won in the division last year and we didn't win in the division this year, and that's something we have to correct next year. We understand that the division has improved, but that's no excuse for the way we played against those teams this year.

It's always fun to watch Natalie play on defense because you never know when she will make that great play or make a throw that no one expected. Offensively we've seen a lot of growth in her this last year, expanding her game to include the short game, using her speed to be able to slap as well as drag bunt to get herself on base.

They wanted this one. This is a big game for us. They beat us 1-0 last time and got a goal late in the third period and we had another chance at them and we got it. Now, all we have to do is go beat Granite City. They beat us this season, and we still have one more shot at them, too.

There's that little runner. I could have used you in my backfield last Friday.

I personally didn't overlook them, because we overlooked a game last year and we ended up losing. I don't think the rest of the team did because they understand that this is our last game to get to Peoria. I thought we came out and played hard.

He threw better, but he's still trying to do too much. He needs to just let it go and let things happen like he did at the end of last year and he started to do a little bit of that (Wednesday).

The last two days, it felt like I used to play golf. I'm just trying to find the fairway and take it from there.

The last three weeks, we watched film and they're hitting on all cylinders.

The last few years we've found ways to win some games,