Darin Hazel Quotations

Obviously, the dunk was huge because of the crowd. That dunk set the tone for the night, especially out of a half-court set. After that, it was our game to lose. The kids did a tremendous job of finishing it out.

He's a great kid. He plays hard at both ends.

It boils down to how well they shot the ball. If they don't shoot the ball that well, we could win that game. The McConnell kid was lights-out tonight. We knew he was good, but every time they needed a bucket late, they came up with a bucket.

Looking at tape, we felt a zone would be effective against them. They're so athletic and we had a hard time controlling them off the dribble the last time. What we wanted to do was get a fast tempo to start, get them a little tired and switch to a zone. I think that was really effective tonight.

I was hoping for a playoff type atmosphere. To be honest with you, I wish it would have been more a playoff atmosphere. We didn't get as much out of it as we wanted. I know we will play better in the playoffs.

It all boils down to Neil tonight. He's a kid that just does a terrific job on both ends of the floor. He's a kid we want all our youngsters to look up to.

We've told the kids that our best way to win a championship is through defense. I thought coming into the season defense would a strong point but I think we've gotten into an offensive frame of mind at times. We're trying to get back to basics with defense.

We just didn't take care of the ball. That's the bottom line. There's not much you can say. Too many mistakes where they made the plays when they had to. It was two good teams out there and a lot of things happen. Tonight they were better than us.

This was a tough place to play and we had to just go about our business. Give them credit, they played hard. We started to take control in the fourth. It was nice to see the kids face some sort of adversity, to be in a close game and pull it out.

With him, we need to get him a touch every time down the floor. Some of the times we got away from that earlier in the season. The first couple minutes of the third quarter are probably the most important of the game because you have to come out and build your lead or get back into the game. We've taken the approach of let's get the ball into Dan and Neil's hands and go from there.

We certainly didn't make the shots when we needed them. We can't continue to play with just two players (Lewis and Matthew Brown), we need kids to step up. This game hasn't changed in a million years, kids just have to hit their shots.

Even though he's 6-7, it's still tough to get him the ball sometimes. We just didn't do a very good job of getting him the ball, but at the same time you're not going to be able to force it in there and play your game.

Offensively, I thought it was one of the best games we played in years. The kids moved the balls and were unselfish.

They play really tenacious defense. When you come to playoff time, you're only as good as your role players and our role players really didn't score tonight but at the same time they played terrific defense which kept us in the game.

It's a terrific way for them to end their home season. What a way to go out, to cut down the nets with back-to-back JVL championships on Senior Night.

Their press really hurt us. We just made too many mistakes. We are getting close to where we want to be but give them credit they forced us to make mistakes and the turnovers allowed them to get into their offense.