Brian Blume Quotations

She's really stepping up in her senior year. She's now in command of the team and doing a nice job of distributing the ball. She's doing a nice job of getting the ball to the open person.

We were 6-for-15 (40 percent) from the line. That's only counting the front end of one-and-ones. When you miss the front end, that's really missing two free throws. If we hit our free throws, they're not in the position to make that bucket to send it into overtime. In overtime it came down to not doing the little things. We missed free throws and had careless turnovers.

We've been shooting well in the second half of the season. We didn't shoot well against Heath. We were 12 of 37 (32 percent) from the floor. Our shooting was off. Our passing was off. We weren't moving well. All those things combined for poor offensive execution.

We've improved, but I'm sure Heath has as well. The last time we played them there was a 30-4 free-throw difference, and you don't win many games when you get beat 30-4 from the foul line. Taking all that, I think it's going to be a real battle. We like our chances.

We've really had a good second half of the season. Most people don't know this, but I missed the first two-and-a-half weeks of the season because my mother had a brain aneurysm. We used Christmas break as my preseason. We worked hard putting things in. That's when they really started to learn my system. Things started clicking. We started competing and then lately we've learned how to win. Hopefully that will continue.

We just played real lethargic the whole first half. They got a good chewing at halftime and came out and went on a huge run. ... We went out in the third quarter and just lit it up on the scoreboard and played real hard defense.

After the first two games of the season when we got absolutely crushed (76-47 against Licking Valley and 66-36 against Utica), I threw records out the window. I wasn't going to look at wins and losses. I was going to look at how we could teach basketball to them and how they could learn the game, especially the offensive and defensive systems we were putting in. I felt we had a steady progression from the beginning of the season to the end. I felt at the end of the season that they had a good knowledge of the game. I felt we had a successful season because they learned how to play.

Defensively, I wasn't displeased. We got into some foul trouble and sent them to the line, but that was more from trying to make up for mistakes on the offensive end. Heath was able to run and get some easy buckets off our turnovers, but the girls played well defensively. They probably had 30 points off our turnovers. They really didn't score much against us out of their half-court sets. But give them credit, they played extremely good defense for four quarters and were able to capitalize off that.

They shot the ball well in the second half and we didn't. They were able to get back into the game.

They're the heart and soul of this team. They play the majority of the minutes. They've been there before and they've set a good example for the underclassmen. ... These seniors really leave it all on the floor, and that's all I can ask of them.

It's probably something she's been playing with the whole season. It's been bothering her and she got it looked at. She's basically been playing on one leg the whole season. It's the same leg she broke in softball last year. She broke the fibula then and now it's the tibia.

It was a pretty even game the third quarter. In the fourth quarter we just didn't do the things down the stretch to win. Loudonville executed real well.

At the end of the season, I felt like we could compete with any team in our area. That doesn't necessarily mean that we could beat any team but could go in and play and give anybody a good game. Early on, we didn't do the things it took to finish games. We first had to teach the girls how to compete. Once we learned how to compete, then we had to learn how to win. By the end of the season we learned how to finish games. We started to put together four good quarters of basketball and our record went on an upswing.

I'm really proud of what everyone is doing. I told them we're finally getting five people on the floor playing well, where we used to have just one, two or three. We're finally getting what we want, four quarters and people playing real hard.

I really liked how well they got along as a unit, how they shared the ball, moved the ball and were not concerned with who got the points. It was a matter of playing the game as they were taught. I thought the team chemistry was a strength. They were a cohesive group that played well together.

You can't give any team 37 extra possessions and expect to win a ballgame. Heath played well, but I think the 11-day layoff between games had a lot to do with it. We just looked a step slow. In every aspect of the game, we looked a little slower than Heath did.