That was basically what it boiled down to. We played good enough defense to win the ball game. The shots just didn't drop. We weren't anywhere near our average, and anytime you're in a one-and-done situation like this tournament, it's a bad time for that to happen.

I was just hoping for some more contributions from more kids. They came out and played hard for me, so I was happy about that. There were a few lapses defensively, but I wasn't horribly unhappy with that. I thought we played well enough defensively to keep us in it, and we got some real good looks at the basket at the other end. I mean a whole bunch of open 10 footers. We just didn't put the ball in the hole.

This is a great game for us. They're great competition. I knew coming into this tournament that we could go home 2-0 or 1-1 or 0-2. I think we had four real even teams here. It was certainly no cupcake tournament.

During our 13 days off, we worked on defense. I knew we'd be good at that. The shooting ... well, I wasn't sure.

I wish we could have made our shots early. But our defense early was the difference. Our defense won the game for us.

Sickles played really good defense. You're not going to beat a team by only scoring 35 points. They did what they had to do to win and what a great year they've had. I'm not saying we didn't have a great year, but Coach Garcia has done an excellent job with his kids.