In Reply to: The Illinois game posted by ej on February 13, 2025 at 13:40:19
Maryland is #3 and Oregon is #5. It's not like the players had never played in front of a loud crowd.
Illinois' home court advantage is near the bottom of the B1G, above only Wisconsin and Northwestern. Even Purdue (#9) is ranked below UCLA (#8).
I don't think crowd noise really affects teams. When you're in the flow of the game, you can't really hear it.
To the extent the players were too amped up, it's just as likely due to them knowing how important a win would be and wanting to play well outside the Pacific time zone.