There's talent, yes, but they had to improve. I don't know if we really expected to win the state tournament. Getting to state was our goal, and we played well that weekend. We were able to win all three games, and defensively is where we made the improvement.

It's interesting, I know that. I don't know if I'd say it's fun. It would be nice if we had another in double-figures, but we almost always have something interesting to talk about.

Every night, if we need a lift, someone has given it to us. It seems like it's someone different each night.

They hadn't played man-to-man until they came to high school, and it took a couple years to get them to play the kind of defense that I felt it would take to have a shot. This year they got to the point where they didn't like to go to zone. But the last couple years they would rather play zone than man-to-man.

The one thing about this team is they go out every night and expect to win. You can't teach that. It doesn't matter who the opponent has been. They aren't cocky or look past anyone or anything like that, but they expect to win every time they go out on the floor.

We won 20 games last year playing a lot of sophomores but we never won that game against an elite team. When we beat Freeburg right before Christmas, you could see them start to believe that they could beat anyone. And when we beat T-Town, you could tell that they really believed.

We'll get a half-hour shoot-around on the Redbird Arena floor, and that's great for all the teams to get acclimated. Unless you've been there before, there's not too much else you can prepare for.

We were slugging it out back and forth. Thankfully, they didn't get in the last punch.

We're not a very big team. Rebounding will be key for us.

Our girls are pretty level headed. They know even though we have beaten them by double digits all three times, last two games were two-point games at halftime. I don't think overconfidence will be a problem.