Hoping to avoid rust

<blockquote><p align=justify><b>Jessie Evans counts on Cajuns being ready after layoff.</b>

LOUISIANA La. — If Louisiana’s Ragin’ Cajuns have any rust from an extended layoff, it will show up quickly on Tuesday night.

Coach Jessie Evans’ squad resumes action with a road game at Dayton, a team that took a perfect record into a Saturday night contest against Wagner, and that would present a challenge in the best of circumstances.

Throw in the waiting game Evans has been forced to play with final exams, and the game becomes even more problematic.

Five Cajuns — two transfers and three returning players — needed to solidify academics in final exams that ended on Saturday before they can hit the floor against the Flyers.

The deadline for grades to be posted is 10 a.m. Tuesday.

A short-handed UL lost at Georgia Tech, 79-45, in the Preseason NIT. The Cajuns also drummed Loyola of New Orleans 89-57 at home while waiting for reinforcements.

While the Cajuns have been dealing with divided attention, Dayton was busy winning the Maui Invitational and opening the season with a bang.

“We’ve had the opportunity to see them play on TV, and they have a very fine team,” Evans said of Dayton.

<center><p><a href="http://www.theadvertiser.com/sports/html/C5ABC2BF-AFB7-4FAC-A8BE-2CB4A0573273.shtml">The rest of the story</a>

Bruce Brown
bbrown@theadvertiser.com <!--

“They have excellent leadership. They’re experienced and clever on the perimeter. Dayton is probably stronger inside than Georgia Tech. Obviously, since Tech won the NIT and Dayton won Maui, they’re both very fine teams.

“They’ve been playing well together. Dayton is coming on a tournament berth last year, and they’re probably going to be undefeated when we play them. It will be a challenge for us, but one we welcome.”

“They have a couple of more games under their belts than we do,” Cajun center Chris Cameron said. “They’re very quick in transition from defense to offense.

“It will be a tough task. We’ll have to approach it as if it were our first game, like we’re starting the season over.”

In a sense, the Cajuns will be doing just that.

The two games they have played happened at least two weeks ago, and the level of competition offered a varied evaluation of the squad’s progress.

“Loyola wasn’t a good test of our program,” senior guard Antoine Landry said. “Georgia Tech was a high-caliber team, and Loyola was a step down.

“But, as a team, we’re improved. We did a better job on defense in the second game and shot the ball better. Dayton will be a better test for us. I know we’ll need to play tight defense on the perimeter against them.”

“Obviously,” Cameron said, “we progressed a lot from the first game to the second. The opening game was pretty disappointing. We didn’t hustle. But we made up for that against Loyola. We had to concentrate on the little things and rebound better.”

“Georgia Tech is pretty good, obviously, since they won the NIT,” Evans said. “I knew that from the players they had returning.

“I think we’ve gotten better, but you need games to test that. We’re making headway defensively, and we will be a quality defensive team. We’ll be able to apply pressure for 92 feet, but you need depth to do that.”

Depth is one thing the Cajuns don’t have until those final exams become official.

Then, they’ll have another test waiting in Dayton this week.
-->