He's really bought into the man-to-man defense, and really turned into a leader. He's always guarding the other team's top player, and at times carries the team on his shoulders on defense. He's such a leader by example, such a great kid to have around.

I love this team. These guys are so unselfish. They don't care who gets the credit, they just want to win.

That second half, we seemed a little sloppy. Our help defense wasn't quite what it needed to be. We were reaching a little bit more than we needed, not moving our feet (or) bending our knees. But, when you've got 60 points in the first half, I guess that can happen from time to time in the second half.

Anytime you can come out and jump on somebody, that kind of puts you in the driver's seat. You're looser, you're not as tight, you're not forcing things as much. When we jump out on that lead, we seem to play pretty good with that.

Not winning, second place doesn't make you feel good. Our goal was one thing, to win it all.

I want to give Verona credit, they came out and played extremely well. I think that's a sign of what a great team's about. We weren't exactly on our game and they played their best game, and we still came away with a 10-point win.

It was one heck of a game. Puxico came out and played their butts off. They gave us everything they had and we were lucky enough to come out on top.

The big guy (Bogan) came in and D.D. (Gillespie) left and that kind of created a void at the guard spot. Jeff was willing to let his numbers take a hit for a while until he figured everything out and the team figured everything out.

It's so tough to get there, so many things have to work in your favor. I've seen a lot of great teams not make it, and teams that shouldn't have made it work hard and get there. It's been the goal of my life to get there and win a championship. That's the thing we're trying to stress is you have to seize the moment.

That just speaks volumes of how deep of a team we are. On any other team, a lot of these guys all would probably be first team. ... It's a heck of an accomplishment for our team. It's a great personal accomplishment for those guys that made it. Hard work paid off.