Deke Routheaux Quotations

We've been in all 25 games going into the last three to five minutes. Even out in Arizona, we were competitive against some pretty good competition.

He's a good one. We had to keep our eyes on him.

He defends the post pretty well. At 6-5, he's a pretty good force in there with his long arms. We look for him to score even more.

Robert Wood's penetration was key to the win, especially after Nelson fouled out. He would drive and dish outside. He really created a lot of offense for us. It was a very competitive match. They're a much improved team, with a good coach who's turning that program around.

Justin was able to get inside for that shot and we felt that it was as good an option as any. He's very athletic and he got a good roll on the last shot.

We played really well in the first half against a really good team.

We played well against a good team. We were missing some of our bigger players, so we struggled on the boards, but we moved the ball well and hustled.

We've got seven kids averaging between 8.4 and 16. That's a good indication that they know how to give the ball up and spread it around. We're not the kind of team you can shut down by shutting down one player.

We played one our better games of the year against a very tall and good shooting team. It really was closer than the score tells. They made some free throws at the end to build the lead.

We never gave up. We kept working hard against a very good team.

We were in six tournaments and took second in five of them. We lost some close finals, but we're still learning to play back-to-back games. Hopefully, we learned over the season what we need to do to take care of our bodies and come back the second day of this tournament.

We still had a chance to tie the game at the line, trailing by two with 4.2 seconds left, but Robert missed his first free throw, then the second on purpose, but we couldn't get the rebound.

We were red-hot. Cory was 6-for-9 from 3-point range. He's our best 3-point shooter and is gaining the confidence he needs.

We were within seven points with 3:00 left, but that was it. We got a little tired and they got away from us. We played well. It was nice to see four players in double figures.

Elliot had a nice game for us. Our young guys continue to improve. Those are the kind of contributions we're going to need from our freshmen as we near the tournament. Robert had another nice floor game for us with several assists, too.

The second half, I told them they have to defend every possession. Don't rest on defense and don't get impatient on offense. If you get behind, you have to be more patient than if you're ahead. We made a conscious effort to work the ball inside, where we had an advantage. Hagen hit those three threes and everybody loosened up.

They're big, they can leap and they're good shooters. They killed us on the boards with 23 offensive rebounds.

It's good for us to play out here in Nimrod Nation. This is part of Gogebic County and we have fans and students out here, too.

It was nice to win the last home game, but once the game started, I wasn't thinking about my last game.

It was a good game. We've been in a lot of close games this year and haven't won as many as we'd like. It feels good to win a close one. Hopefully we learned some things.

It was a great game, an exciting game. We had a shot to win it at the end. We got behind, but battled back. We worked hard to get back in the game. We just came up a little short.

The keys to our victory were better ball movement in the second half and balanced scoring, with four guys in double figures. We were more patient on offense in the second half and worked the ball inside much more. The net result is we shot 53 percent for the second half.

All we needed to do was make our free throws. We had some mental lapses with the ball down the stretch and missed six of our last seven attempts at the line.