Joe Aiello Quotations

Our players didn't come out and compete at all. It came down to leadership and we didn't show any. It looked like our players were hiding and just gave up. Trust me, we will address this in practice.

Tony (Queen) and Ray (String) did a phenomenal job defensively on Hurtado. We executed our game plan and forced him to his left all night and got him frustrated. Not many teams have been able to shut him down. He is really a special player.

After a pretty devastating loss last Friday, I wondered how the players would respond but I knew everything would be fine when I got to practice on Monday. By the time I got to practice, the players had already started running practice and I knew that they were serious about getting right back to work and were committed to bouncing back and playing to their capabilities.

I thought we played very hard on the defensive end and really looked like we wanted to deny Bullard anything. But that's the kind of effort it takes to play good defense - you almost have to take the other team scoring personally.

Daniel (Zamora) is just now rounding into form, but he adds a lot to what we do offensively. He goes to the basket strong and gives us some toughness.

We knew that Cox was a very good shooter from 3-point range and were determined to not let him get comfortable out there. I told our players to deny him the ball and make him put the ball on the floor and we definitely kept him from hurting us.

Even Vance Walberg (Fresno City College basketball coach) said Jackson was like a man playing against boys. And there is no doubt how good Clovis West is, but I thought our players were kind of intimidated and I was disappointed that we didn't compete better. I felt like some of the kids gave up and just went through the motions.

Mark came up huge for us tonight, hitting big shots and pushing the ball up the court. He ran the show tonight and did a great job in all facets of his game.

Mark had to deal with some adversity and after missing the free throws could have hidden. But he showed a lot of character by stepping up and knocking down the three in such a critical situation.

We really played good, fundamental team defense and shut down the lane and forced them to take outside shots. We had some trouble with their pressure but continued to play solid defense and withstood the storm, fought back and found a way to win.