Derrick Kirce Quotations

One of the things we wanted to focus on this week was good team defense and rotating to certain spots with the proper effort and we were able to do that.

There is more stress as a coach because you want to make sure you do everything possible to put your players in a position to have success. I try to think of every little drill and everything I can to say to help them.

Our man defense was what won this game. In the zone, we just got too lackadaisical.

I was playing around with different concepts in my mind and came up with trying to use our big men up top because of their quickness and the confusion I thought they could cause.

We played horrible, but the key is we won. Looking at how Avon Park played in their semifinal with so much passion and desperation I kind of felt this game would be close. But the key is that we won and good teams win ugly games.

The decision wasn't wrong. The timing was wrong. I just said, 'God, get me out of this one.' And I think He did, because He knew my intentions were good.

We don't run a lot of offensive sets through him.

I'm happy. We got the win. We came out with a lot of intensity and got the lead and then our intensity fell off. I wasn't happy with that. I was pleased with some of the reserves who came in and gave us good energy.

That is the character of the team that Sloan and Marquis Johnson didn't get into the game until the end and weren't afraid. They paid attention and did what I asked them to do and got the job done. They didn't get rattled by the crowd.

I was 24 or 25 at the time and coaching guys that were 36 and 37. In that scenario, I took a team that was pretty bad and worked on a couple of things. We got more guys involved in the offense. We started winning games and we upset the No. 1 team in our league. That got my juices going.

It's unusual to see this kind of defense in high school and even if a team comes up with a concept of how to attack it, it still can throw you off. We trap the ball and because of our height and speed we can cover the passing lanes.

It's a matter of patience and sticking with the system. Not only Clark, but everybody on the court has to learn to stick with the system and listen to what I say. When they started to have success in the fourth quarter, they were starting to do what I told them to do. It's that simple.

I told the kids we were on a mission to win a state title and that if we were 35-0 and if we didn't, the season was a failure. Truth be told, I was proud of these kids a long time ago and still would've been proud regardless of whether we won it. I felt we could do this. It's not a surprise. I felt last year we could've done it.