Craig Haase Quotations

Those two runs we made were huge when you look at the final score. We knew how big they were inside we so we had try and turn the game into a track meet. That worked pretty good for us tonight.

These two kids right here are pretty special guards. I wouldn't trade them for anything.

I thought our kids played with a lot of heart again tonight, and we battled them hard. But we ran into a man-child in Polka tonight. He's a stud in the paint. We knew it was going to be a problem for us.

I thought our guys showed a lot of poise when Watertown made that run. They didn't panic. We could have been in trouble had they scored two or three more unanswered baskets. That was a big part of the game. We kept working hard and eventually got the momentum back in our favor.

It's been the same old story for us all season. When we play as a team, make the extra pass, kick the ball out to the open man, we can be successful. We've got guys who can shoot the ball. The kids were very unselfish in the second half.

Obviously, Polka is just a man-child. He's just a stud in the paint.

We like to push the ball, get it in the lane and kick it back out. When we do that, we know we have a lot of guys who can shoot the ball and make shots. Obviously, we made a lot of shots tonight. We're playing with a lot of confidence right now, and we couldn't have picked a better team to be at our best.

What we have to do is take care of the ball and value each possession. It's probably going to be a defensive game. They play good defense and so do we. At this time of the year, the team that makes the fewest mistakes usually wins.

We've had a good run the last five years and that's a credit to the kids and the coaching staff. We always seem to play our best basketball of the year once the tournament begins. And we're going to have to play well on Friday to stay with South. They've got a great team this year.

(They) haven't let his distractions become our team's distractions.