When Prairie View A&M was sent to Bridgeport to play UConn in the 2012 NCAA tournament, few people were expecting a competitive game.

However, the Lady Panthers had other ideas. In the final two minutes of the first half Prairie View had the ball and a chance to cut the lead into single digits. Trailing by 14 points at halftime, the SWAC tournament champions would end up losing 83-47. But they were trying to use that game as well as the upsets in the men's tournament as motivation heading into Sunday night's first-round game.

"First off, we wanted to come out and play with confidence," said Prairie View's leading scorer Jeanette Jackson. "We wanted to play hard and show the world what we were all about.

Former assistant coach Dawn Brown, the Lady Panthers' interim head coach, is encouraged by what she has seen in recent days from her squad which is just one of nine teams with losing records to make it into the NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament.

"We had a great practice yesterday, probably one of the best practices I have seen," Brown said. "We shot the ball really well everybody was pumped up and Jeanette did a great job as far as leading our team and this experience has been something we have been used to coming here.

"We are the 16th seed. it is going to take a collective effort in order to get the win but anything is possible. We have to hit shots and we are going to have to score the ball, that is going to be important. If we are able to score the ball and get our offense going. I am sure Jeannette Jackson is going to have a good game, Laur has been here for four years. We have adjusted some things in our offense as well as our defense and hopefully tomorrow that will work in our favor."

The UConn players are determined to have a better first half than the Huskies did in that 2012 game.

"I remember that we didn't play that well," UConn senior guard Bria Hartley said. "I think it is hard, it is your 

first game back after two weeks and hopefully we have a lot of excitement going into the game and everybody brings the intensity."