23 Quotes by Troy Graefe

I was particularly pleased with our two starting sophomore. They played with courage. We didn't get the breaks tonight, but I thought those guys played hard and courageously throughout the game, as did all of our kids, but in particular those two.

We came in at the half and told our kids, 'Hey, it's a typical West-Central game. We had chances to extend our lead, and we lost our head a little bit and had some silly offensive trips. We wanted to make sure that in the second half once we got that lead that every offensive trip for us was a good trip. I thought we showed a little bit of maturity that way in the second half.

Those two guys are our leaders, and they do more than just score and get rebounds and get steals. They give courage to the rest of the guys with the way they play.

You have to know where he is all the time when you play those guys. Because of that, other kids on their team get open looks. He's just a very, very good high school basketball player. I was very impressed with how hard he worked tonight. Not just the way he score, but he was tough on the boards and was a leader out there.

We just wanted to regain our composure. We kind of started playing a little too fast on offense and consequently we started pressing a little bit on defense and gave them so easy looks.

Even he got a little bit rattled and had a couple of turnovers that are uncharacteristic for him. But, he gets big rebounds, he hits big shots and hit those free throws down the stretch. He's just a tough competitor, and we're a lot better team when he's on the floor.

Isiah Martinez had a great day, and if you're not your best you need someone to step up.

Coach Thompson comes to just about every game and those guys who played for him and Coach Baggot talk about how they used to just terrorize teams with their defense. Coach Hicks is here a lot and we talk a lot, and his teams obviously were great defensively. ... That tradition is an advantage we have.

They really picked up the intensity much more aggressively. It was possession by possession. We went on a run in the third with nine unanswered points and cut their lead to three. When that happened, we had the confidence we needed to finish it.