Ken Koelbl Quotations

One thing I give our guys credit for, they didn't give in. They kept battling.

I was fortunate both as a player and a coach to have worked and played for people who stayed true to what they believed in.

For us to be a conference contender, we've got to be a better team defensively. You can't give up (35) points in the first half and expect to win. Our offense played well, but didn't get the stops when we needed to.

He does keep things in perspective. When things get tough, I look at him and realize that we are doing good things.

I thought we were out of character on offense. Calvin did a great job of disrupting our rhythm and we didn't have a good flow.

I thought we got stronger as the game got longer. I'm glad we got to a second overtime and had more time to get stronger.

I think we're right there on the cusp (of being very good). It's just a matter of us staying with it. We need to keep doing the things we've been doing, and we need to do the little things to be successful.

Marcus is the guy I want to have on the line in that situation. And I think he wants to be on the line in that situation. I give him a ton of credit. Unless you've been in that situation, you don't know what it's all about.

We had two pretty good practices leading up to this game. We were pretty focused on what we needed to do.

You don't win 20-plus games if you're not a good team.

We did a better job of getting the ball down low. I thought the first half we weren't quite ready to play. We needed to be ready right from the get-go.

Both of them were in a position where they knew more responsibilities would fall on them. But they put a lot of time and the effort. When you do that, good things will happen.

Your first priority is always what you can do for your team. These guys realize that they're doing well because our team is doing well.

This is huge for our program. This really shows the growth we went through as a team this year. We are really confident, because as I told our kids, our conference is so good that we can compete with anybody nationally.

As I watched, it didn't seem like they missed.

It was a struggle, but it was a good struggle. I'm not sure we played our ?A' game, but we certainly had our ?A' competitiveness.

I told them not to hold their breaths, but that we had an outside shot at an at-large bid. It was just a matter of the right teams winning their conference tournaments to make sure there are enough at-large bids left.

I told them the same thing after Whitewater (a 72-70 loss in the WIAC semifinals). In time, you'll appreciate what you did. We have come so far in three short years, and what's neat is how many people contributed.

Even when things were tough, I kept things in perspective. I looked at what we were going through as paying our dues. Sometimes you have to struggle before you can get to where you want to go.

I liked what I saw from them right away. They were young players, and I knew that they had a lot of learning to do. But I saw their ability and their work ethic, and I knew they had a chance to be successful. They've both lived up to expectations.

The guys are disappointed now because we came so close and had a great opportunity to win the game at the end. But I think in time the hurt will go away and they will appreciate what they did.

You've got to learn to deal with tough times. It tests you, but you've got to believe in what you're doing.

All we can do is try to have two good days of practice and tuck this one away. In a situation like this, you've got to have a short memory. Unfortunately, we're in that situation right now.