Vikings senior forward Thomas Turnbull:

“We couldn’t get anything to go in. And with their big guy, he was just blocking shots everywhere and making it so our guards really couldn’t get good looks at the basket. It was just frustrating.”

“We’ve got to look forward to helping build our game up during conference play. Playing against good teams like Archbishop, Northview, we’ve got to use that experience to help us build.”

Vikings coach Roby Witcher:

“They played us hard on the perimeter. And they’ve got the big guys inside, so they don’t have to worry about you driving. We’re working hard on our perimeter game, but with the quickness that they have we just weren’t able to get off a shot without duress. We weren’t able to make any passes without duress. And when you do get back out one-on-one, you come up against a 6-11 guy standing there in the paint.”

“I told them we played two very good teams this week and I felt like we had an opportunity to win both games. This was a different team than Science Hill played the other day, because of Sampson—he made a huge difference.”

“Their guards were able to get up on us. And the same kind of thing happened to us on the first day of the tournament, when we were 3 for 23 on 3-pointers. If we shoot our normal percentage, we’ve got a really good shot of winning that first basketball game, and then we’re playing Science Hill at 5 o’clock.”

“We told them, hey, we could’ve gone somewhere else and played in a tournament, or not even played in a Christmas tournament and tried to get a few wins. But we didn’t do that. We tried to play against good teams. D-B got blown out. East got blown out. It’s the same scenario. So we talked about let’s take a couple days off here, not think about this tournament, come in on Monday, and get ready for [David] Crockett on Friday night.”

“Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. They understand this is a good team. They’re frustrated, but they also understand that there were some pretty good players out there. And when you go against them, sometimes you come up on the short end of the stick.”

Titans coach Steve Bombard:

“You probably heard my halftime speech. And as you can tell, I’m hoarse right now just talking. I was yelling so loud it hurt. We weren’t playing with any pride. I mean, it doesn’t matter if you’re playing in a varsity basketball game or you’re playing at the YMCA, playing one-on-one. If you’re guarding somebody, you have to have pride that he’s not going to score on you. And we were getting beat off the dribble. So we said that anybody who gets beat off the dribble in the second half is coming out of the game.”

“These kids have a lot heart. We got a rude awakening against Science Hill. But we had practice yesterday and got it together.”

Titans senior guard Najja Nicholson:

“We said in the locker room that we had to step up, play defense and play as a team. This team’s all about defense. And when we play defense, that helps our offense score more points.”

Titans senior center Ralph Sampson III:

“Coach said a lot at halftime. But overall, he challenged us as a team and got everybody focused. We bonded and went out with a fire. We played like we were supposed to and we set the tempo of the game.”

“Coming off the sickness, I had to adjust to how the game went and how it flowed. In the first half, I came out and tested the waters to see how the defense played. In the second half, I played a little more aggressively and was able to attack more.”