Deke Routheaux Quotes (11 Quotes)

Robert Wood's penetration was key to the win, especially after Nelson fouled out. He would drive and dish outside. He really created a lot of offense for us. It was a very competitive match. They're a much improved team, with a good coach who's turning that program around.

The second half, I told them they have to defend every possession. Don't rest on defense and don't get impatient on offense. If you get behind, you have to be more patient than if you're ahead. We made a conscious effort to work the ball inside, where we had an advantage. Hagen hit those three threes and everybody loosened up.

We were in six tournaments and took second in five of them. We lost some close finals, but we're still learning to play back-to-back games. Hopefully, we learned over the season what we need to do to take care of our bodies and come back the second day of this tournament.

It's good for us to play out here in Nimrod Nation. This is part of Gogebic County and we have fans and students out here, too.

We've got seven kids averaging between 8.4 and 16. That's a good indication that they know how to give the ball up and spread it around. We're not the kind of team you can shut down by shutting down one player.

We've been in all 25 games going into the last three to five minutes. Even out in Arizona, we were competitive against some pretty good competition.

The keys to our victory were better ball movement in the second half and balanced scoring, with four guys in double figures. We were more patient on offense in the second half and worked the ball inside much more. The net result is we shot 53 percent for the second half.

We played well against a good team. We were missing some of our bigger players, so we struggled on the boards, but we moved the ball well and hustled.

We were red-hot. Cory was 6-for-9 from 3-point range. He's our best 3-point shooter and is gaining the confidence he needs.

Elliot had a nice game for us. Our young guys continue to improve. Those are the kind of contributions we're going to need from our freshmen as we near the tournament. Robert had another nice floor game for us with several assists, too.

All we needed to do was make our free throws. We had some mental lapses with the ball down the stretch and missed six of our last seven attempts at the line.