Gordie Kerkman Quotes (36 Quotes)

We were playing like we were down big, and we really weren't. I thought we were going for steals too quick. It was causing us to foul. It was causing us to give up easy baskets. Pretty soon we had to shoot threes and we had to foul. They hit free throws and we didn't hit threes. You're in bad shape then.

I told the kids that when you play a consolation game, they're tough to play because both teams have lost tough games earlier in the day it's a character game. Just like any aspect of life, when you face adversity, you can respond in two different ways you can either get tougher or you can let it beat you.

We all want to win it all, but obviously there's only going to be one team that wins it. But I think teams come here looking to get four tough games that will do you some good down the line. I'd like to think every game we played here will probably do us some good.

This has been one of our better years in terms of taking care of the basketball.

I thought we rebounded better in the second half. We were down 13-6 (in rebounds) in the first half, but we rebounded with them in the second half. We didn't dominate or anything, but neither did they.

I understand that four classes give more schools an opportunity to be champions, but I think the more you add, the more you water it down. If four is good, 10 might be better. And pretty soon it doesn't have that much meaning.

We went into a different offensive set that was probably more to Johnny's liking. It made me think that we probably should have run this offense more often.

We just had to play basketball. That's one of the things we addressed, don't let the emotions of this particular situation get you down. We had to come back and play the way we're capable of playing.

Aaron is a very good shooter. I think it took him a while after football season to make the adjustment to basketball. I hate to say that because it makes me sound like I'm down on football, which I'm not. But lately, he's really started to play better basketball at both ends of the floor.

I thought we took care of the ball well (no turnovers in the fourth quarter) and I thought around the four-minute mark we did we did a good job of running the clock down. I liked how we played the last 3-4 minutes.

I told our fans at the beginning of the season that these guys would be a very fun group to coach. They were. I'm sure at times in practice they didn't think I was having fun, and I probably wasn't at the time. But overall, I'm not going to say I couldn't be happier. I could be happier. But I'm very proud of them.

I almost called a timeout, but I figured I'd see if we could play through it, and we did. I thought our kids maintained their intensity in that situation and did well not to panic.

We did not rebound very well in the first half ... I think particularly after we got a little bit of a lead we just thought the ball was going to fall into our hands.

That's one of the things in the second half of the season that I would really compliment our kids on is they finish games really well. Tonight, we didn't. We had to hang on.

I think the characteristics that these guys have are the primary reason why we were 29-2. They're a fun team to coach. A bunch of nice young men. From a standpoint of whether we could get to Peoria or not, we just kind of took that one game at a time this year.

With that kind of lead and that much time to go, we should have been able to take care of business. But all of a sudden they got hot.

The 3-point shooting was not really by design. We had some plays set up for Aaron, but it was not necessarily a game plan. He just got some good looks.

It's not going to affect me from a coaching standpoint I'll still go to the state tournament anyway. Whether I'm there coaching any games or just watching remains to be seen.

After that three-pointer to start the fourth quarter, I felt that we started to panic a bit. It was almost like we thought we were 10 points down with 4 minutes to go. It was just the start of the fourth quarter. We pretty much played the whole fourth quarter like that.

It's an honor considering the guys that didn't make it. I feel fortunate that I've been surrounded by people that have given us success. Not to be too modest, but I feel better for both of them.

It's always tough to give up a foul on a three-point shot, but I'm not sure that got us going.

I thought we played very well.

He does a lot of things. Gets his hands on a lot of balls, hits the boards, defense. He has a lot of talent. He can shoot the ball. He can make a lot of things happen.

We had to hang on at the end, but I don't want that to ruin a good win.

John was an idol of mine. He was so close to winning a state title. He is very highly respected. He is truly one of the greatest in the state.

I thought we made a lot of bad decisions but, I guess when people put that type of pressure on you, you tend to make bad decisions. I thought we were very listless the first half.

They (Warren) were starting to pick our man-to-man defense apart, and I thought we were able to get some momentum back when we switched defenses.

Once we got the conference to a point where we wrapped it up, that's when we started thinking about the state tournament series. Whether these guys could make it or not We're not an overpowering team, but we will battle you. I thought we could play with anybody, but we didn't really blow too many people out.

We like to have a balance, but it's not that I don't want someone to score 30-40 points. I'd be happy to have that if we could get it.

The first game was no masterpiece by any imagination. I thought both teams played awfully hard.

I sort of thought that we got out of our game plan today. You could even see it in the first half. I wasn't very pleased with the way we were playing. I thought we were hurrying our offense a little bit. That's not necessarily our style.

I somewhat anticipated it (a 20-win season), not that we would be 20-1 right now, I wouldn't have guessed that. I felt this team was capable of winning 20 games. I think this is a pretty good group, they have been fun to work with.

It's a very good conference. When we came into it, people said we'd walk right through and we haven't. Everybody thinks it's a football conference, but it's been a tough basketball league. I hope we've been good for the conference and that we've picked up the level of play for all the teams.

It's tough to go on the road and play the No. 2 team in the DVC on the road late in the season like this. At tournament time, those are the kinds of games you're going to have. I thought they responded very well.

They learned to shoot the three better since the last time we played them. I didn't know if we could stop their threes, but we hit our free throws.

I think we've got a very good team attitude right now. I think they're confident in themselves. I think they're confident in their teammates. I just like the overall attitude.