In Reply to: Regarding: Outcoached posted by lafong on March 29, 2026 at 10:36:52
he was talking about brand new rims, brand new out of the box basketballs and too little time to practice in the game arena due to having two regionals together at the same location - means 8 teams vying for practice time on site instead of just 4.
He said the result was unfamiliar conditions and that led to teams missing layups all over - at both S16 arenas. We may have been the most extreme example with 9 of them but it wasn't just us. Hoping we will have adjusted better for today's game but UConn and ND have both struggled with shooting at times also this morning already in their E8 matchup. Some of that is clearly also great defense being played. And maybe some of our misses were due to being too wired, too high in that first half Friday.
Ours is clearly a team that does better as it settles into the groove of playing the game but defense can get you off to a fast start - as we have shown twice now when starting fast following a very slow start in recent games. We'll see how our shooting is doing in a short while - hoping it will be better especially from close in and out far - lots of room for improvement but we'll be going up against one of the country's best defenses today - and a great coach - so it's a test for sure