Geoff Salmon Quotations

No doubt our schedule helped us. For example, our game against (Class 4A) McCutcheon was great preparation to play South Central. Those two are very similar. There wasn't anything in the tournament that we hadn't seen, today included.

She's mature enough and she wants to win and she's accepted it. A lot of teams, when they sub, maybe go down a little bit, and teams can take advantage of that. When we sub, me may get better, depending on who comes out and what kind of night they're having.

It came when we needed to take care of the ball. That's what's so disappointing about it.

Those kids have had three coaches in four years. To stick with it and grind it out and make it here their senior year is just incredible.

We didn't rebound, we didn't guard, we weren't sharp offensively at all. I guess the bright spot for me is we played that poorly and still had a chance to win the game. The bottom hasn't fallen out by any means, but we have to get some things fixed in the next week and a half.

We want them to get caught up in it. It's something they'll never be able to do again, for the seniors. We'll get after them in practice and go hard like we have all year, but we also want them to appreciate what they're doing.

We started 0-5 because of that. We got down big at the J&C Hoops Classic every game. We have been preaching that. I thought before the game we'd have an advantage at the guard spot and it seemed to hold true.

Even this week, neither team's ranked or anything, but we'll still feel like the underdog because they're 23-5 and we're 17-10. I think that's why they've enjoyed it, because it's helped them stay relaxed. They don't go into a game thinking they have to win or are expected to win. They've just played loose and played very well.

Every game in this tournament we have had a different leading scorer. Anybody who has followed us all year knows we do not have a superstar.

On the year we were about 56 percent from the line. Today we shot 80 percent in the second half and 76 percent for the game.

Finally, Mills got us going. Her cuts were harder to the middle. It was open all night. As soon as we started doing that, things were good. We started making some shots.

Teams can't run many gimmicks on us because you have to guard all the kids. The first of the year, that's what I thought our strength would be was shooting the ball, and they finally got it clicking.

You're going to have to come out and get off to a good start defensively and let the game come to you. Get used to the surroundings and the depth perceptions on the baskets. That ought to take half a quarter.

I'm nothing but proud of our kids. Nobody gave us a chance. I'm sure everyone thought it was going to be a 35-40-point game. There are no moral victories; I just feel good about how we played and the effort we gave. We've made a lot of strides.

The key today was our free-throw shooting. A lot of that has to do with having seniors stepping up and hitting them.

All week we have shot at least 50 free throws a day.

You've got to put a coaching staff together that's responsible and can do things for you, because you can't do it yourself. And then you've also got to have talented kids, which we do. So we've got the combination that you need to get here. It's not me, it's not one person.

The girls' confidence has been up ever since the Tri-Central loss, really. We still played with Jeff for three-and-a-half quarters. McCutcheon only beat us by eight. And then we went to Benton Central and played pretty well for most of the game. I think a combination of all those teams will help.

I told the kids, 'If we're not making shots, do things you can control,' which are rebounding, taking care of the ball and playing defense. We hung in there until we got clicking.

I couldn't be more proud. That's the sixth-ranked team in the state and we beat them on a neutral court. That is huge.