He plays with so much more confidence. Last season he essentially was our fifth starter and was out there to defend, and every now and then he'd get out in a passing lane and make a steal and make a play. But this year, he's one of the major players on the floor. He's playing with great confidence at both ends.

He's now been our leader for a couple of years.

I love Joey. He plays so hard for us. He's pretty long and he's got pretty good feet, so he's versatile for us defensively. We can put him on a big kid or put him on a perimeter player and he just always gives a great effort.

It was huge, and that was the most important outcome of the night. This is the hardest we've played since Longmont. We're the kind of team that we have to be energetic and have to play with passion against the people we're playing in order to be successful. If we do that, we're pretty good. If we don't, then we're pretty average, and that was evident our last two times out.

It's like immediate energy. He just comes in, and something happens. The other night against Mountain View it was a critical time in the game, and he just took his man off the dribble hard and scored a big basket for us. It was one of those possessions where we were kind of starting to stagger a little bit, and he got us settled again with a big basket. He's capable of doing those kind of things.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.