They pounded the ball inside on us -- both these teams did that to us. McMinnville had a 6-2 post and another good-sized 5-10 post and they just pounded us down there. When you look at McMinnville, that's what you'd expect, though.

We've been in every game in the first have in the last few games. We've executed, made good shots and played pretty good defense. We tend to take a beating and get worn down against bigger teams, though.

For us to compete with teams like that we have to play a near-perfect game, and of course we didn't do that.

You absorb a few losses in a row and spirits start to sink a little bit. Body language starts to change, so the kids left there happy and have, I hope, a little bit better sense of how to play a complete game.

Midas don't have a bowl.

It was ugly -- 12 turnovers in the first quarter. I don't know if we got into the holiday fudge early or what, but it brought back visions of last year. I give (Reynolds) credit -- they played well. We also helped them, though.

We won't check if they're real fans. We got an inflated football we were supposed to hang, but some kid popped it. What are you gonna do?

We've had some good moments, just not complete efforts. I felt the kids played hard for four quarters. It was probably the most complete effort of the year, no doubt.

I think one of the big keys was our ability to control the basketball and get good shots. We were able to run some clock off and shoot a good percentage. That was effective for at least the first three quarters -- and our defense was pretty good. Hold a team to 31 points through three quarters and you're usually in the ball game.