Turns out he probably shouldn't have said anything.
Once referees realized players had been using a women's basketball and replaced it with a larger, regulation-sized men's ball, Illinois rediscovered its usual shooting stroke and gradually seized control of the game. The Illini closed to within four at halftime, took the lead for the first time five minutes into the second half and rolled to a comfortable 74-63 victory.
[Rewind: MLB player mistakenly wears the wrong jersey]
"I don't know how you start off the game with a women's ball," Oakland guard Reggie Hamilton said by phone afterward, still chuckling. "At first it was working in our favor. Illinois wasn't making that many shots. Maybe we should have kept it."
The unofficial explanation for the mix-up according Illinois coach Bruce Weber was that the most recent game Assembly Hall hosted was a women's game on Dec. 1 and a women's ball was still on the rack. Illinois shot 3 of 13 from the field with the women's ball, while Oakland hit 7 of its 16 shots.
"Our kids said something right away, but I said, 'You guys are just missing shots, shut up and play,'" Weber told reporters after the game. "It should be easier to score, to be honest. It's smaller. It should go in the hoop better."
It's difficult to believe it took players more than seven minutes to demand a new ball considering how much smaller a women's ball is than the one they normally use. An official men's ball has a one-inch larger circumference and weighs two ounces more than its official women's counterpart.
"Going into the game, the last thing you worry about is playing with a women's ball, so we didn't realize it at first," Hamilton said. "We weren't thinking about the size of the ball."
[Rewind: United States' flag mistake accidentally signals war]
Hamilton laughed at the irony of his team shooting better in the opening seven minutes, but he wasn't willing to say Oakland would be better off using a women's ball the remainder of the season.
"If you look at the game, we still had the lead going into halftime even with the men's ball," Hamilton said. "Even if we go out there and shoot with golf balls or tennis balls, we just got to make sure we're playing Oakland basketball and we'll be fine."
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