Jim Roffler Good Quotations

Omar hurt his wrist in the Tacoma game. He didn't play his best game tonight, but he contributed in other ways and ran the break well early, which got us off to a good start. We know he'll be there for us down the stretch. When he gets back 100 percent physically, he'll have a lot more confidence.

I think that's the fourth time this season we've held somebody under 60 points. Defensively, we did a good job holding them down. Offensively, we can score enough to win against anybody, but we have to shore up our rebounding.

That was a well-played first half by both teams. There was a lot of good offense and good execution. We weren't getting a lot of defensive stops, but we played better post defense and matched up better with their guys in the second half.

We didn't do a good job handling their defensive pressure, and that was witnessed by very suspect footwork and poor passing on our part. We blew a lot of good opportunities to get the ball inside.

We have to come out and focus on team defense. We need to play with a lot of emotion and intensity. We're a good offensive team with good balance, but we need to have our 'A' game defensively.

First games in tournaments are tough. If you watch the tournament championships in all of the NCAA leagues, you'll see ninth seeds knocking off top seeds. This is a tough time of the year, and everyone is either pretty good or has got a lot better.

We've put together some good second halves. Against Highline (on Saturday), we held them to 29 second-half points.

They shoot the ball really well and take a lot of 3-pointers. They've had some big wins, and they've had games where they were way ahead and let their opponents back in and lost. They also have a good inside presence.

This is a big time for us. I'm doing my best to get these guys ready, but we need to get focused when we get to Kennewick and have some good practices.