7 Quotes by Dan Friend

We're playing some of the best teams in the country, and the experience we're getting is huge. Playing against this level of competition will only make us better. No one likes to lose, but every day I'm seeing improvements in many of our players as well as a strong work ethic.

I thought we played well the first two games. I think fatigue set in a little bit in the third game. Their certainly ranked as high as they are for a reason.

We were geared up. We played with a lot of emotion and energy, and our defense was outstanding. Once we saw we could get a game from them, we just grew more and more confident as the night went on. Playing against a top conference opponent inspired us, and this game showed to me that we can be a force in the conference this year.

We've played at an extremely high level at times, but other times we've played below our capabilities. I'm hoping that we'll get that pattern out of our system and start playing a little more consistently. All three of our losses thus far were games which we felt we should have won.

Everyone's really made a strong effort to get better individually, and they're all learning what it takes to succeed at this level. We've made great strides from the beginning of the season, and I'm hoping these kids will use this year's experience and carry it on over into next year and future years.

I really expected to get some wins right off the bat. We understand where we're at right now, and although we've shown signs, we know we still have to improve every day. Because we're so young, we're going to make mistakes early in the year, but as the year goes on, I see us only getting better and better.

All my shots were within probably five feet of the basket, so I really didn't have to do anything. I hadn't really played much basketball since the school year started, so it was nice to go out and just play for fun with no one taking the games too seriously.