22 Quotes by Dave Newton

There are some big smiles on our kids after that game.

We got to where we made some better decisions as far as passes were concerned. We didn't hold the ball as much and telegraph passes. I though we had better reversal. We got out on the break a little bit better where we were able to get some better looks at the basket and not get into so many half-court sets. We do want these kids to get out and use some of their athleticism and play in the open court a little bit and I thought we did a much better job of that in the second half.

He's a bigger kid who can shoot inside and out and he was doing both (Tuesday) night.

He's a good shooter. We'd like him to take more shots, but being a sophomore, I think he has it in himself that he doesn't think he needs to take those shots. But we need to have him take those looks and try to knock those down.

He's getting his confidence and he's figuring out that the varsity level is a little higher intensity level. But he's adjusting and so are the other kids. I'm pleased with all those guys that swing. I can't say enough good things about what I think that is doing for our basketball program in the future.

He was our 'go-to-guy' and our offense ran through him as well. Jeremy did a great job this year. It was a big adjustment for him compared to the previous year because he had to show some leadership out on the floor with the youth we had. I expected a lot out of him and I think I got what I needed out of Jeremy this year. I thought that he stepped up and did what we asked of him and made himself a presence out there on the floor and us as a coaching staff appreciated that.

Kenneth didn't have a lot of numbers offensively, but his presence on the boards was felt out there and I think defensively he made some contributions as well. So did Will before he fouled out. He was playing some pretty good defense and scrambling around out there, causing some havoc.

I thought we played four solid quarters of basketball. We started out with a great first quarter. I thought we handled their half-court trap very well. Kenneth (Bradley) got loose for some big points down low. He scores nine of his 16 in the game right there. I thought we did a better job of looking up the floor and being patient about moving the ball from point to the wing and hitting the middle.

I thought the kids gave themselves every chance to pull out a win in their first league game. We are playing better basketball, and that's encouraging, but our problem in the first half is that we had 19 turnovers. We ended up with only seven in the second half.