Connie Allen Quotations

We usually start off slowly. We usually play better in the second half, but we just played well in the second quarter and they really struggled shooting the ball. Obviously, that made things easier for us. We didn't change anything. We went with our game plan. We just did a better job executing.

Luckily, Chelsea hit those free throws at the end. If we would have made them at the beginning, it wouldn't have been that close, but we made them when it counted.

Morgan does that basically every game. We put her on their point guard and we tell her to pressure without fouling, play good defense. When she does that, it puts the ball in someone else's hands that's possibly not used to bringing it up and it kind of throws their momentum off. She does a great job. Without her, we wouldn't be the team we are.

My girls never gave up. We were down by 16 at halftime and we lose by 18. We lost the second half by two points against a very good team. I'm very proud of how they played.

I lost a cousin about three years ago. I felt helpless and wished there was something I could have done.

If someone mentions suicide, you need to take it seriously.

People may not expect a lot from her because she's not flashy, but she is flashy when it comes to seeing passing lanes and finding her teammates. We have to get in her face and disrupt what she's seeing.

I was very proud of her in the second half. You could see her getting ready to go for the basketball, and it would have been an over-the-back call and she backed off. That's a good thing, to see them taking what you tell them and going out and doing it, especially going into the tournament. We're going to need her to stay out of foul trouble.

I was very impressed with our second half. We played a 2-3 zone, but we didn't box out well so we have to work on that. But I was very pleased. We took care of the basketball. Morgan Reeves played a tremendous game. She sparks our defense. She did a great job doing that. She took a charge from (Heath's) Maggie Combs and was in her face the whole game. She was able to rattle Heath a little bit.

I was very impressed with our defense the first half. We didn't take care of the ball as much as I would like us to. We had eight turnovers in the first quarter, but we limited it to 11 in the first half. When you have possession of the ball it makes it a lot easier to score.

I was happy the first half. The second half was a letdown that I usually don't see with this team, so that has me concerned.

We have a lot of girls who go out there and just bust their butts. It showed (against Centerburg) when some of our girls stepped up. They didn't want to lose.

We're taking three days off. We're having a little sleepover, some relaxation. I told them we're starting a whole new season. It's just like the beginning of the year where we have two weeks of practice and then get ready for the game. I'm ready for the tournament and I think the girls are, too.

We practiced against the 3-2 but we were passive. We didn't attack it.

We didn't show up to play until the second half, and when you're down by 19 it's hard to fight back.

We would like to keep the sanctity of our neighborhood as it is -- rural.

When you play your rival, you have to know that they're going to come with everything they've got. Records mean nothing. It doesn't matter who's playing well, who's not playing well. It's who comes out and wants to win it. Northridge came out and wanted to win it. We just happened to want it more in the fourth quarter and we did things right in the fourth quarter.

We had shots falling in the third quarter, and the fourth quarter we didn't have those. We had some open looks. They just didn't fall.

There's good and bad in it, and I'm obviously going to look at the good. I think it will give our girls some time to relax and some time to go through the things we put in lately and get them refocused. I think it will be good for us. They all played so hard.

It was the same thing (as in a 66-55 loss to Utica on Jan. 13). They started out on fire, and I don't know if we shut them down or if they got cold in the second half. The same thing happened this time, but we just didn't get the offensive scores we needed and we had some girls in foul trouble.

Rachel is the kind of person that is going to take the smart shot. She knows that we need her to step up and score. If she doesn't score, she finds other ways to be a leader. She keeps some of those underclassmen in control and knowing what to do out there. You have two freshmen, a sophomore and two seniors out there. That's a lot for a point guard to have to control.

This is by far the best team we've seen. Their posts are quick so it's hard for posts to match up with them when you try to jump up into a zone. When you try to match up man-to-man, you have those back-door cuts.

They were down and they knew they had to play better defense. We didn't play defense in the first half, and we knew we needed to in the second half to make it a ballgame. If we would have done that in the first half, we would have been fine.

They played a triangle-and-two on us. They matched up Corrie and Rachel and left our posts open. Corrie, Rachel and Morgan were able to get the ball to our post players and we beat them inside.

They didn't do anything different. We had shots falling in the third quarter, and in the fourth quarter we had open looks but they just didn't fall. Once they got the lead late, they didn't force the issue as much. We would step out but they did a good job taking care of the ball.

It was our best game, four quarters. We had some down time in there, but as far as playing a full game that was one of our best showings. They did their runs and we would have our runs. That's what basketball is about. It's about runs. We had more of them and scored more out of our runs.

It was the kind of game I expected. It came down to runs. Both teams had their runs. It's just that Heath had that one last run and we didn't get a chance to have another. Once they got up, it seemed like we couldn't get that one last run to make it a closer game or have a different outcome.

It's a good place to experience music and see how sound works in the world.

They were beating us to the ball on the floor. We had one rebound in the first quarter, four by halftime and 12 turnovers (by halftime). You can't win ballgames like that. They deserved to win.

They weren't on in the first half and they were in the second half. I think a lot of it came down to rebounding. We let them get too many offensive rebounds. They weren't making a lot of their first shots. It was their second and third shots.

I knew coming in, it would be a tough game. The girls might not have.

I just told them to play better defense. We changed a couple things on our full-court press. We jumped to a 2-3 for a little bit and didn't do too bad of a job with it. They were shooting well the first half.

I think my main focus is always defense. We're not a great half-court, set-offense kind of team. Our defense sparks everything we do offensively. We'll do some special situations. We'll do some fun stuff, some stuff that we're not able to do during the regular season. Now that I have everything in, I can do things that usually we don't have time for.

(Cannon) had 15 rebounds. Twelve of those were offensive. I feel she was getting beat up in there and not getting the calls. She didn't give up. There are going to be games where they don't call those fouls inside and that was one of them. She kept going after it. She didn't get discouraged and that says a lot for a freshman.

The first game was pretty ugly for both teams, but now it's two totally different teams. Often this year we've saved our best ball for the second half, and (Monday) we can't do that.