It's tough to concentrate on other teams when you're struggling in your own conference. When they beat Texas, we knew they were a good team.

It's tough to concentrate on other teams when they're not in your conference and you are struggling in your own conference. We were having problems in our conference early on. When they beat Texas, we knew they were a good team. We are giving them their respect.

This is a very competitive conference, and that's what makes a conference great. When anybody can beat anybody on any given night, it makes for some terrific games all season.

Back when we were 3-6 in conference and had just lost to Texas, we had a team meeting and decided we would shock the world. No one outside of this family, this team believed in us. It made us what we are today, and we've been rolling ever since.

We knew with New Trier and those types of teams we would have to beat them to do it. Sure enough, we got it done by one.

We knew after they beat the Czech Republic [it was going to be tough]. We knew it was a good club and not an easy team. We respected them.