Had it dialed in...then what happened?

In general with action you will get the shot in those 3 as you get better and time your shots well. A really long buffer can work for certain things, but in general you want to time your shots so that they are just at the right moment. It makes for much less waste and dross to toss out when editing and also means that you get better at really seeing the moment to shoot not just blind shooting with a machine gun.

A few more thoughts;

1) I shoot most of my indoor with manual mode as well. If the arena is generally evenly lit or the differences are minor then I don't need the camera resampling the exposure all the time. I just need one reading and a test shot or two to make sure and then I know I can shoot and trust it to work. I Always keep an eye on the meter needle through the day of course as things will change.
The key is that by using manual mode if you get a white subject suddenly dominate the metering area it won't change your exposure - same for a majority dark subject; it keeps it constant and on that good exposure.

2) RAW gives you more room to work with and whilst it can slow you down early on it will really improve the potential of your shots when editing. Note that good use of software such as Lightroom can also make a big difference to your processing speed. (remember Lightroom and Photoshop are now on monthly contracts for under around £/$10 so well worth it.

3) As said before learn hot to with with stronger noise levels. I consider 1/500sec the slowest for action in general if you want a sharp shot and even then 1/500 can blur edge areas of moving elements. 1/620sec is generally safer.

4) f2.8 and f2 are workable depth of field wise; any larger in aperture (smaller in f number)renders a very thin depth of field where its very easy to miss-focus or have the focus right but the subject angle such that not all you want/need in focus is in focus as its not all in the same plane relactive to the camera (remembering that depth of field is like a sheet of paper parallel to the front of the lens).
 
As far as AF points. Is it better to use the single center point or all points?
 
AF sensors work by picking up the closest point underneath an active AF sensor which shows a difference in contrast. This is why poor lighting or a subject with monotone can sometimes be hard for a camera to focus upon because there is little detectable contrast difference for them to lock into.

Similarly this means if you've got all the AF points active it means anything underneath those sensors that is closest to you will be what the AF locks onto.

For this reason a single AF point is often chosen due to the fact that you can define the point YOU want by aiming that AF point at the subject. By using AF points not in the middle you can vary the composition; although often the middle point is the most accurate (this has changed somewhat and higher levels have more high end AF sensors)
 
As far as AF points. Is it better to use the single center point or all points?

I'll say that it depends, but considering that the T2i has only 1 cross-type sensor, the one in the middle, that's the only one that I ever
use (out of 40k shots on my T2i, maybe 500 were off-center).

This again is where the 7D markII shines (even more so then
6D and 5D full frame stuff), and even the 70D is a huge improvement
over the T2i.
 
I realize I'm at the limit of my T2i, but I'm going to squeeze all I can get out it before I upgrade. I shot a high school game last night with a more (M) manual approach. I removed the UV filter. In manual mode f2.8, ISO 3200 and 1/500. I probably could have gone faster given a few shots were over exposed (the last photo). The images are not as sharp as I would want, so maybe 1/750 or 1/1000 next time.
High School BB1.JPG
High School BB2.JPG
High School BB3.JPG
High School BB4 OE.JPG
 
Well, I like the frozen action in these (not the last one obviously).
 

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