Mike McAfee Quotes (23 Quotes)

I was pleased with the way our kids kept playing defense. I'm proud of the way our kids played all four quarters.

Jay had a stellar night. He made five field goals inside, hit 2-of-2 at the line. He really did a good job.

He's an all-around player. The nice thing about him is he can shoot the ball and shoot it with a good deal of accuracy. He makes his free throws too. He's just now starting to get an idea of what he can do when he really works at it.

I thought we played better each time we played. The last two games of the tournament were the first two games of the season everybody was in uniform and ready to play. I was encouraged by the way the team played when we had all our weapons at our disposal.

His leadership was definitely there. He did such a good job as a leader on the floor. Even when he wasn't in the game he was a leader on the floor and that was a really important part of our success for the year was having him accept that role. There were times when he took the team on his shoulders and carried them through - showed them the way, which is big. It shows a lot of heart, a lot of leadership and a lot of ability.

I can't say enough about how hard they played in that second half. If we could have done any of that in the first half, I think we could have turned the game around. In the second half there were so many places we could have turned it around, too. I can't say enough about the effort that the kids put out. It was amazing, it really was.

Michael always comes in and gives it 100 percent. He's another one of the quiet kids on the team. He's always thinking, 'What's going to happen here' He's a player's player. He's ready for what's going to happen and he plays good defense and he came in and gave us a big spark because of his energy. And one of the things we talked about was that we had to play with intensity and Michael came in and took that to heart. He played with intensity and it was evident that it gave us a pickup.

We try to approach the end of the quarters on a high note, and that can be a great defensive stand or a good offensive opportunity. I think our kids are understanding the power of momentum more and more and we certainly want the momentum swinging our way, so we'll play good defense or work for the best shot or both. Maintaining our focus was a key to our success.

It was a really good game and Taft has a good team. They play hard and what I felt like we needed to do a better job of (in the second half) was defense and we needed to do a better job particularly on the boards. Playing better defensively was what we talked about at halftime. And I thought we did. Our offense starts on defense. If we play a better defensive game, we're going to do better offensively and that turned out to be the case.

Every team that we play is putting their best defender on Chris and they're trying to shut him down. But we've got a lot of guys out there we feel can score. We're also working really hard to get Chris open. I thought he played a pretty heads up game.

Spencer is our most improved player. He just turned up the dial this year. He got more confident in his ball handling ability. He got more confident in his shooting ability. He's a smart kid. He works hard. He's one of those kids that always asks how he can improve certain aspects of his game and then he's out there working on it.

Turnovers hurt us and especially in the first half. We had our team average in the first half for turnovers. We can't afford to squander that many opportunities to score. We have to be smarter with the basketball.

I thought another young man who had one of the better games he's played all season was Spencer. He got some huge rebounds. It was nice to look down there and see this guy way up in the air grabbing the ball and it was Spencer. And then offensively, he was attacking.

They hit enough. At that point you can't play trade-off. We've got to be outscoring them all the way through if we're going to be successful. If we could have cut that (lead) to single digits, that would have been the ideal because at that point they're going to start getting worried. And what you're always hoping a team will do (in that situation) is shift their mindset from playing to win to playing not to lose.

I make substitutions based on who can hit a free throw. Keith Cochran is our most accurate free throw shooter. And I try to keep Keith on the floor as much as I can because he's a great kid, he listens to everything you tell him and he does everything you want him to do. We need to have people going to the line who can hit free throws. We focus on free throws every day in practice.

You can't match him on heart - he gives everything. Bill was a leader on the floor too. He was the one before every game that got the guys together for the group cheer - 'Who's house Our house.' He's the one that took the initiative to make the warm-up CD. He's just a great young man. I can't tell you how much I appreciate everything he did for our basketball team.

From the first quarter, right on through the fourth, I feel our kids played a good game. It's always our hope that everyone will get involved and it was great to see Kyle Morrow come in and play well. I'm hopeful that Kyle can continue to come in and contribute.

That fourth quarter was like a game within a game. Jackson was working hard, and knocking down shots, and I felt our kids were working hard too. I was really proud of the way we maintained our composure. We stayed on the attack, on both ends. That made the difference for us. Our guards did a good job of controlling the ball, and getting everyone involved in the game. We finished the night with just nine turnovers, that stat alone is significant in our success. I'd be happy with that just about any night.

Travis played a really good second half. He plays big in big situations.

We think this event has the ability to bring people from outside of the area. Thomas Hart Benton and the work he did is very popular right now, so we saw the momentum.

We played pretty well. There were some shots that we need to be able to convert that we didn't.

We didn't do a very good job of denying the ball to Conklin. He's a pretty skilled player. He's a scrappy player. He likes to get out and mix it up.

As a team, we know that we've got to come out and be on top of everything from start to finish. If we're going to get anywhere down the road, in the playoffs, we need to refocus really quick and get ready for Central Friday night.