This is a game everyone kind of needs. We need it, Butler needs it, and hopefully, we'll be ready.

It's hard to know. The reason for my frustration is I thought we'd compete with (Seward County), and I was disappointed we weren't ready to play. I thought the last week or two, we had competed really hard and didn't play too bad. But it was the worst we've been in a long time.

You know how it is. The game has to be in the low 50s for us to win. It was 25-25 at halftime, and we had done a good job defensively. But once they started making shots, we had a hard time generating points. We've got to have a few baskets from other people.

We'll have to play well defensively. They're a team that can put points on the board, so we'll have to put some points on the board ourselves. But the key for our team is to play 40 minutes. We've been in a lot of games, but we haven't finished them.

They played physical, and it wears you out after awhile. We had to play hard, too, and it came down to fatigue.

Like I told them, we've got to be proud of ourselves. We were in it in the second half, but the toughest thing is fatigue, and that became a big factor. They competed hard and they did a lot of good things, like we have all season. It just doesn't always show up on the scoreboard.

We were going to lay off (Snell), and (Gonzalez) hadn't played much, but once they hit a shot or two, we had to guard them. When you play at home and you hit a couple of those, you get momentum and the crowd gets excited. If they don't have that stretch when they hit those, we would have been right there.

They hurt us on the boards last time, so that's a concern, and containing Witte is a concern. The other thing is getting back in transition. They get the ball and go, so we can't give up points in transition.