In Reply to: The unfortunate truth posted by TheHappyBurgermeister on January 29, 2026 at 23:45:16
Note what you wrote in your final two paragraphs, HB:
You said - referring to our doubling down on Lauren - 'That can work if hammering to Lauren can get the opposing big in foul trouble. ' Then you finished with 'If Lauren had been able to play more than 4 minutes in the first half, then Vasconcelos would have been in foul trouble much earlier.'
I agree with you. I do think having Lauren out there caused Illinois to go with their strategy of riding Vasconcelos and may well have led to her fouling out.
Cori Close commented on the Illini's strategy in her postgame presser. She noted that Illinois was the first team in a while that has gone with a single defender on Lauren and chosen to focus its defense chasing us off the three point line. She said if that's how they choose to play, we will go after the two pointers and exploit our height against them. We have a height advantage over nearly everyone position by position - our guards are bigger and stronger than most teams' as our forwards are as well - in addition to Lauren, there is Angela, Sienna who is starting to come into her own now, Amanda.
But I did think Lauren was pressing. Her shots were harder and lower trajectory than usual and they were clanking off the back side of the rim. She was clearly reacting to the pounding she was taking which was egregious and it took her that time on the bench and then halftime to collect herself and play like she can in the second half.
Well we have that one under our belts; hope like the first half against Texas it's over and we're done with it. I expect we will play really well on Sunday.