That's a tough group in there. Top to bottom, and it starts with the seniors. This is a huge win. (Utica's) a quality team, very skilled offensively. ... We got out in front early and made some key shots when we needed to after that.

Against Loudonville, we pounded it down low and we just weren't finishing. Now, we're getting it inside and we're getting fouled or scoring.

It was huge for our team this year and for the confidence that we could beat a team as good as Utica. Utica is hard to guard because of how they play and how they try to get mismatches. But we really, really were dialed in defensively. Every time they scored, other than a couple times in transition, it was tough for them to score. The guys have really bought into that defensive attitude. It was a great win for our program.

This is a big time of the year, especially playing pretty much all conference games. (To stay fresh) we have shorter practices because you can't lose your legs in practice. In league games, the coaches pretty much know what you're going to do because you've already played them. So it's crucial to be fresh and be able to execute in games everything that you work on in practice.

Every game we've had different guys step up. Against Utica, it was nice to see a couple of the younger kids step up. We really came together as a team.

We emphasize that to be a good team, you have to have good senior leadership to go far in the conference and in the tournament. We've had that so far and that will likely be important for us in the next few weeks for us to be successful.

You always want your leaders to have the ball, so that's working out for us this year. But that's something that scares me a little bit going into next year. We'll need some younger guys to step into that role next year. We'll definitely have to go big at times next year. But that's why the second half of this season is going to be so important. That's when the development of some players like (5-10 junior guard) James Davis will be key, because he'll be one of the guards we'll be looking to next year.

We put in some different looks, it was something we just put in before the Johnstown game. It broke up their rhythm a little, and we did a good job boxing out.

That was huge. That was a quality team we beat. We've got some tough kids, and it's a tough group. For us, this is huge for our confidence.

Nahum showed a lot more improvement at the beginning of the year, then with Jon, it all started clicking for him a few games ago. Some of these guys don't have a ton of game experience, so when you get the ball to them in the post they go too fast. Now they're starting to slow things down a little bit.