"They had been seriously underestimated." At the commentary booth, the commentators could not help sighing after seeing UConn's performance at the start of the game.
The media had placed UConn in the third tier, behind teams like Arizona University and Kansas. The main reason was that, in the media's eyes, UConn's players had limited talent. But now, it seemed they had underestimated Walker, Lamb, Tang Tian, and even O'Riaqi.
Two scoring threats, one defensive anchor, and a fundamentally sound big man in the paint—those were the standard ingredients of a powerhouse NCAA team.
On San Diego State's possession, Franklin's jumper after using a pick still would not go in.
O'Riaqi continued to protect the defensive rebound.
A wave of unrest stirred among the San Diego State fans.
Nearly three minutes had passed, yet their home team still had not scored.
At this point, a smile appeared at the corner of Cahoon's mouth.
Though this was their first meeting, as a veteran coach with forty years of experience, he had far more experience handling this kind of game than most coaches.
San Diego State's two forwards were the core of its offense. One excelled at low post power attacks, while the other was good at driving to the basket. Their shared trait was that they loved attacking the rim.
Based on that, his pregame arrangement had been for UConn to use a pseudo 2-3 zone defense.
This so-called pseudo 2-3 zone meant playing man-to-man under normal circumstances, then immediately collapsing into the paint and switching into a 2-3 zone whenever the opponent drove inside, denying them scoring opportunities in the paint.
This defensive approach, somewhere between man-to-man and zone defense, had been invented by the Pistons in the late 1990s to deal with Michael Jordan. UConn was still finding it extremely