Wendell Jeffries Quotations

One of the things we emphasized tonight was the third quarter. Usually we have a slow third quarter with or without the lead and we outscored them by nine and that was something we were looking for.

I give these guys a lot of credit. Wheaton Academy is a very well-coached team. They are very disciplined and can shoot the ball.

I think you have to give them credit for playing well. They came in here in a seventh-place game and played about as well as they can play.

I thought the effort at both ends of the court was there tonight, and I thought the teamwork was there. We're starting to get some guys back healthy, and Isiah (Anderson) is back in the rotation which helps stabilize things.

That (concern) was warranted. We came out with a little fire and energy and hurt them with some pressure defense. We got up to, what, a 10-point lead? But we're in a transition period, trying to learn how to play with a lead. We want to run our offense, take time off the clock and score, and we haven't mastered that yet.

It didn't really mean anything. They'd already beaten West Chicago by 26 and 36 points in the first two meetings, so in the back of their minds, they knew they could just show up and win, and that's what they did. With an extra day of rest and preparation, they'll be ready to go.

We played hard and we played good defense. We just didn't shoot well. People can preach team (play) and people can preach defense, (but) it doesn't matter if you can't put the ball in the hole.

We played (with) the fifth-ranked team in the state on their home floor. It was a valiant effort by the kids.

We'll still compete, but it will a challenge because we're so young. With all our young players, the future looks bright.

When you play with a lead you have to be patient and involve your teammates. I saw a conscious effort on the part of everyone to make the extra pass.

We had a good practice yesterday (Thursday) and the kids we focused. It was one of those things.

You have to give West Aurora credit, when a team makes a run on you like that, and you're favored on your home floor, people start looking over their shoulders. They just responded. That's the sign of a championship team.

You have to give them credit for taking Shaun out of the game. We didn't force-feed Shaun. We thought the other guys would step up, and they just didn't step up.

We just had too much adversity to fight through. That was the turning point when we lost both of those guys at the same time. By the time they came back, it just wasn't the same.

At that point we were going and I just thought I'd let them keep going. Maybe we'll hit them, maybe we'll miss them. We missed them.

There's no excuse for giving up so many points. But right now we're battling, fighting through a lot of adversity and trying to pull together as a team. All things considered, it was a great effort.

The third quarter was bad because we missed a lot of easy shots and we gave up 20 points. We only gave up 16 the whole first half.

The bottom line in tournament play is just to advance, and while we were short-handed, we just wanted to pull the win out. It was a gritty performance.

They shot the ball great in the first half I've never seen a team shoot so many threes (41 on the night). I think they got tired and were still shooting threes from the outside, and we started getting the ball inside.

It's an ongoing thing, something he's continued to play through. This is probably the fifth or sixth time it's come out. It usually goes back in, but this time it took a little longer.

Everybody wants some momentum heading into the (Class AA) playoffs. I thought we played well.

The turning point was on defense, where we gave up 23 points in the first half, and 19 in the third quarter.

Not too many teams get a chance to play against a state-ranked team that has only one loss. We look forward to that challenge. They're a fantastic team. I just hope it will be close so we have a chance at the end.

In the first quarter, we shot two threes by Shaun, and every other shot came within the lane. We were able to do that against their zone, and I thought that was good patience and teamwork.

I'll tell you what, two overtime games in 48 hours is quite a bit. It's just a test of our character and how hard we played to be able to win this game.

He came back, but I thought he was a little out of sync early. Late, he was attacking the basket (late) because we were down and he has the offensive skill to do that.