It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. It's exciting for the kids and they are really looking forward to it.

I don't think the tough games really rattle us. I think those experiences in the past made this game not so nerve-racking for our guys.

We just try to encourage him. His No. 1 job is to shoot, and we know sometimes shooters aren't always on, but the best way to come out of a shooting slump is to keep shooting, and that's what we encourage him to do.

All I told our guys was, 'Back in December, they won the wrong game,' you know what I mean? We'll take this one.

We've been expecting Al to step up like that all year. I think he's one of the best shooters in the area. Once he believes in that, he's going to take off and really help us.

It's a beautiful thing; it's fun. We're going to defend the crown — what more can you ask for?

We're just here to play basketball. When we were 2-5, nobody was protesting, so that's just how it is.

We've been on him all year. We expect a lot of our Alfred because he has so much potential. And I don't even think right now you're seeing what Alfred is truly capable of.

Our guys are tough. We've been battle-tested. We've had overtime games in the season, double-overtime games, so the close games really don't rattle us at this point.