For one, it took their crowd out of it some and, two, it gave us a tremendous amount of confidence. Our confidence was a little shaky from (Washington) whipping us on our court.

If they didn't put a body on us, they just jumped over us. Their quickness, speed and height were too much for us. We wanted to offset that with our shooting ability but they suffocated Christian.

Playing the (play-in) game helped us a lot. It's a big win for the program and for the section. It makes a statement about our section. We're a lot tougher than people give us credit for.

Confidence is everything. We've got a lot of young kids playing for us this year, so it's important to get off to a good start.

We want to come at them with our speed so we're going with a smaller, quicker lineup. We want to use our full-court game and work it up the court quickly.

This is a senior-laden team and I think that makes a difference. The kids kept their composure and played smart at the end.