2002-2003 Basketball Season
<center><a href="https://forumeus.com/louisiana/history/rp-basketball-m.htm"><img src="https://forumeus.com/images/buttons/button-pageback.jpg"></a><h3>20-10 NIT Birth</h3>
<center><h4>
<a href="https://forumeus.com/louisiana/seasons/2002-03-basketball-teamstat.htm">Team Stats for each game. Reverse chronological order</a></h4></center><blockquote><p align=justify>Below is a post by post, game by game look at the season. It starts before anyone quite knew what the schedule would be . . . Hopefully it captures how some felt as the season progressed. <i>Included are key newspaper articles, if a link is broken please inform the webmaster.</i>
Cajun hoopsters move on despite academic losses
<blockquote><p align=justify>LAFAYETTE - How much will Louisiana miss Michael Southall?
The Ragin' Cajuns would miss him more next March than they will at the beginning of the season, when the star sophomore center will be sidelined by academic problems, since he will be allowed to practice with the team.
But coach Jessie Evans' squad will still have to cope with Southall being unavailable for games until the fall semester is complete.
Also out until the Dec. 8 Birmingham Southern game are guard Laurie Bridges and forward-center Cedric Williams
"It shouldn't be a distraction," Immanuel Washington said. "We all have our assignments to do. It's a big loss, but we'll just have to fight through it. Hopefully we'll be at full strength for the season so we can reach our goal of making it to the NCAA Tournament.
"We have to develop teamwork and commit ourselves to basketball. First of all, we have to take care of our business in the classroom. Then, on the floor, we all have to know our role with the team and to do what coach asks of you."
Southall arrived with practice under way at Blackham Coliseum on Monday, appropriately enough coming from class, as his teammates got warmed up.
"I think it will help us," Brad Boyd said. "For those first two games, somebody's going to have to step up in their place. Then, once the other guys come back and eventually take their place in the lineup, the others are going to have the ability to perform when they get in the game.
"It's not good that they're out, but it could help us in the long run."
Khadim Kandji and Chris Cameron are two obvious choices to fill in for Southall, but if it takes him time to get his rhythm back the Cajuns could miss his 13-point, 7.5-rebound average.
Boyd, Washington and swingman Anthony Johnson (14.9 ppg, 7.0 rebounds) are other starters returning for the Cajuns, who finished 20-11 last season and made the NIT. Another year of eligibility is still pending for point guard Blane Harmon.
"Leadership is what this team is lacking," Evans said. "We were without Blane last year, but were able to recover and win 20 games. Leadership is something we'll try to cultivate as we go along.
"You'd like for your seniors to step up, and we've seen that from Khadim, Robert Jupiter and Anthony. Even Immanuel has stepped up. They're starting to emerge. You don't have to be the leading scorer or rebounder. You can lead by talk and by example.
"We have to have someone that the others can look up to."
"Everybody should take part of the responsibility of leadership," Washington said. "For yourselves, first, and as a team. It's not just one person."
Boyd wasn't thinking about who the Cajuns will miss when the season starts. He's more focused on a different ending in 2003.
"I felt we underachieved last year," Boyd said. "We had a lot of starters who were juniors and sophomores, our starting center was a freshman and I'm sure there were butterflies for big games. This year everybody is more confident, not as nervous.
"I felt we should have gone 25-8 and gone to the NCAA. I want to go to the big tournament."
It will take every available Cajun to make that happen.
</blockquote>South Louisiana Publishing
Bruce Brown
<i>Web Link broken</i>
Mid Major TOP 25 UPDATED: October 15, 2002
Record Last Season
1 Western Kentucky 28-4 3
2 Gonzaga 29-4 2
3 Pepperdine 22-9 8
4 Southern Illinois 28-8 5
5 Creighton 23-9 4
6 Pennsylvania 25-7 11
7 Ball State 23-12 15
8 Louisiana 20-11 20
9 Ohio 17-11 NR
10 UC-Irvine 21-11 18
11 Tennessee Tech 27-7 7
12 UC-Santa Barbara 20-11 21
13 Utah State 23-8 12
14 East Tennessee State 18-10 NR
15 Niagara 18-14 NR
16 UNC-Wilmington 23-10 10
17 Arkansas-Little Rock 18-11 NR
18 Wisconsin-Milwaukee 16-10 NR
19 Yale 21-11 24
20 Butler 26-6 6
21 Manhattan 20-9 NR
22 Eastern Washington 17-13 NR
23 Weber State 18-11 NR
24 Kent State 30-6 1
25 Oral Roberts 17-14 NR
OTHERS RECEIVING CONSIDERATION: Akron, Alcorn State, Boston University, Bowling Green, Canisius, Central Connecticut State, Colgate, College of Charleston, Davidson, Detroit, Drake, Drexel, George Mason, Georgia Southern, Georgia State, Hampton, Holy Cross, Iona, IUPUI, Jacksonville, Lamar, Loyola-Chicago, Mercer, McNeese State, Miami, Montana State, Morehead State, Murray State, New Mexico State, New Orleans, UNC Asheville, UNC Greensboro, North Texas, Oakland, Sam Houston State, Samford, San Francisco, Valparaiso, Vermont, Virginia Commonwealth, Wagner, Western Michigan.
VOTING PANEL
Bart Bellairs (VMI), Tim Buckley (Ball State), Rick Byrd (Belmont), Tim Carter (Texas-San Antonio), Tom Conrad (East Tennessee State), Dan Dakich (Bowling Green), Jeff DiBattisto (Gardner-Webb), Pat Douglass (UC Irvine), Scott Drew (Valparaiso), Hugh Durham (Jacksonville), Jessie Evans (Louisiana), Bruiser Flint (Drexel), John Giannini (Maine), Mike Gillian (George Mason), Seth Greenberg (South Florida), Don Harnum (Rider), Barry Hinson (Southwest Missouri State), Brad Holland (San Diego), Greg Kampe (Oakland), Billy Lee (Campbell), Kyle Macy (Morehead State), Dave Magarity (Marist), Bob Marlin (Sam Houston State), Steve Merfeld (Evansville), Alex Peavy (Wofford), John Robic (Youngstown State), Ed Schilling (Wright State), Patrick Sellers (Central Connecticut State), Patrick Skerry (William & Mary), Pete Strickland (Coastal Carolina), Perry Watson (Detroit)
NOTE: The Mid-Major Poll is made up of teams from the following conferences: America East, Atlantic Sun, Big Sky, Big South, Big West, Colonial, Horizon, Independents, Ivy, Metro Atlantic, Mid-American, Mid-Continent, Mid-Eastern, Missouri Valley, Northeast, Ohio Valley, Patriot, Southern, Southland, Southwestern, Sun Belt, West Coast.
The CollegeInsider.Com Mid-Major Top 25 is now in its fourth year of existence.
Sun Belt coaches seek more NCAA spots
<blockquote><p align=justify>NEW ORLEANS - The Sun Belt Conference men's basketball coaches are in agreement on two things.
They all agree that the Sun Belt will be in line for more than one bid to the NCAA Tournament after this season.
And, they feel that they're playing enough quality teams in non-conference play to solidify those spots - if they take care of business.
"It all depends on what happens against the non-conference teams early," said long-time New Mexico State head coach Lou Henson. "But we have the teams in this league good enough to win a lot of those games."
"We need wins in November and December against quality opponents," said New Orleans boss Monte Towe.
The league coaches wrapped up their annual Media Day activities Wednesday with high hopes, both as a league and as individual teams. Consider:
* Nine of the 11 conference teams have four or more starters returning;
* Six members of last year's 10-man all-league team are back this season along with four of the five honorable mention selections;
* Four members of the five-man all-tournament team from last year's meet return; and
* In a unique situation, the last two Players of the Year are still around.
"I was pretty excited about my team with the players we have returning," said UL Lafayette's Jessie Evans, "and then I got the conference media guide."
"That's pretty incredible that nine teams have four or five starters back," said Porter Moser of Arkansas-Little Rock. "That means you can't just assume because you have guys back, you're going to be good."
Among those returnees is Western Kentucky senior center Chris Marcus, who wasn't expected to return to school two years ago after being heralded as one of the nation's top centers. The 7-foot-1, 285-pound standout struggled through an injury-plagued 2001-02 season, playing in only 15 games after bypassing the NBA Draft, but was still selected as the league's preseason Player of the Year.
Marcus once again passed on the draft last spring, with his ankle injury preventing him from taking part in workouts for NBA clubs. He had surgery late in the spring and has not begun on-court practice for the coming season.
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"He didn't have any setbacks during the summer after the surgery," said WKU head coach Dennis Felton. "He's working out two or three times a day, and the doctors are pleased with his progress. He's never been on any kind of a timetable.
"For his future, this season is all about getting healthy. When he's healthy, he's the best center in the country."
Marcus' absence for much of last season set up the two Players of the Year both in action this season. Marcus won the honor in 2000-01, and newcomer Hector Romero of New Orleans was last year's Player of the Year after recording 17 "double-double" games.
Romero, a native of Barcelona, Venezuela, went home during the summer and played in an international league.
"That improved all aspects of my game," Romero said. "You're playing against grown men in those leagues, and you have to play more of a mental brand of basketball."
Those two joined fellow senior Chris Davis of North Texas, junior forward Nick Zachery of Arkansas-Little Rock and UL Lafayette sophomore center Michael Southall on the preseason all-conference first team. Ragin' Cajun senior forward Anthony Johnson was the top pick on the second team.
Marcus, Romero and Southall make up a trio of centers that are the equal of virtually any league's frontcourt players, according to several press-day participants.
"There's a lot of competition in this league," said Davis, who was an All-Big West Conference pick before UNT joined the Sun Belt. "There are a lot of good players, especially big guys, and it's going to make it very competitive."
"You see SEC-type players at the front-line positions on a lot of these teams," said new Middle Tennessee coach Kermit Davis, who was John Brady's top assistant at LSU for the last five seasons.
Nine of the 15 players named to the first, second and third-team preseason all-league squads are seniors. Southall, who averaged 13.0 points and 7.5 rebounds as a freshman to rank third in the conference on the boards, and Zachery were the only underclassmen on the first team.
All league teams were represented on the preseason team except for Arkansas State, a team snake-bit by major injuries last year. That problem has carried over to this year's preseason drills, with senior guard Terrance Saulsberry going down with a season-ending knee injury in the team's third practice session.
"We thought we got all of that out of the way last year," said ASU boss Dickey Nutt. "I guess the minute you think nothing else can happen, something else happens. That's not good in this league, because I think this is going to be the toughest year of all time in the Sun Belt."
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Experience on the side of Cajuns on court
<blockquote><p align=justify>Advertisers-Dan McDonald
LAFAYETTE - Experience is on the side of Louisiana's men's basketball squad.
No more talk about the youthfulness of the Ragin' Cajuns.
Nine of last year's top 11 scorers return from last year's 20-11 unit, and all nine of them started at one point during a campaign in which the Cajuns were 60 seconds away from a trip to the NCAA Tournament.
They got the consolation prize, an NIT tournament berth, and the players departed from that squad combined to average only 12.7 points per game. Australian newcomer Chris Cameron, now eligible, may get that many by himself.
But Jessie Evans has already sounded words of warning. Experience alone won't win the Sun Belt Conference this year.
"I was excited about my team and how many players we have returning," he said at the league's Media Day, "and then I got the conference media guide."
Nine of the 11 Sun Belt teams have four or more starters returning, an amazing number.
"There's a lot of parity in this league," said Evans, who enters his sixth year at the Cajun helm averaging over 18 wins per year in his career. "There are a number of teams that can make postseason play."
Count his UL Lafayette squad among them, especially if three key components - sophomore center Michael Southall, junior swingman Laurie Bridges and first-year sophomore forward Cedric Williams - survive their academic turmoil as expected.
That trio is ineligible for games prior to the end of the fall term, but will miss only two outings (Nov. 23 at Mississippi State and Nov. 27 at McNeese) if they fulfill classroom requirements and become part of a very deep team.
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"We're going to have the options of playing a lot of people," said Evans. "We can be very flexible in what we're trying to do."
It's almost definite, though, that most of the options will have something to do with Southall and senior swingman Anthony Johnson.
The mercurially-talented Johnson has averaged 15.5 and 14.9 points in his last two Cajun seasons and earned all-league and All-Sun Belt Tournament honors last season when he averaged 16.3 points in conference play. But Evans said that fans will see a new "AJ" this season.
"He took it to heart that he needed to get bigger and stronger," Evans said. "He's rebuilt himself a lot. He's bigger, but he may also be quicker, and now he can go to the basket and absorb fouls and get to the line."
Johnson, who shot 81 percent from the stripe last year, missed a couple of early-season practice days with a torn shoulder muscle ("that's a muscle he didn't have last year," Evans kidded) but has looked impressive in preseason scrimmages.
Southall struggled in early fall drills, but should be a force in the Sun Belt once again when he rounds into form. He, Bridges and Williams have been able to go through all of the team's workouts, but cannot see game action until fall semester grades are posted.
Southall ranked among the nation's top 15 shot blockers and led the team in rebounding and field goal percentage (.544) on the way to earning Sun Belt Freshman of the Year honors and the respect of coaches around the league.
Evans, though, said that the encouraging thing is that the 6-foot-11 Southall is being challenged in practice.
"Our guys have been making him work hard," he said. "We know what kind of talent he has, but he's also got to keep working hard to get better in a league that's got a lot of very good big people. Chris Cameron has been a surprise in practice ... he's heard all year that he had to go inside and bang around, and he's done that."
Cameron sat out last season but will see extensive front-line action, providing mobility on the baseline for a unit that also includes returning senior Khadim Kandji and the highly-regarded Williams.
Brad Boyd and Kenneth Lawrence split time at point guard last year, with Boyd filling that role most of the latter part of the season. They combined for 215 assists - a vital number since senior Blane Harmon was lost all of last season with an injury and is a longshot at best to be granted a hardship year.
Bridges, who averaged 7.2 points in a reserve role, senior Robert Jupiter and junior Antoine Landry all started games last season in the backcourt.
"We're coming along," Evans said. "We're making progress, but there's a lot to be made. The good thing about having so many guys is that there's no loafing. There's always somebody ready to get in there and get after it."
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Cajun hoopsters finally move to 'Dome
<blockquote><p align=justify>Advertisers-Dan McDonald
LAFAYETTE - For the new players on the UL men's basketball squad, it's the big white building with the round top on Congress Street.
Until Monday afternoon, for some members of the Ragin' Cajun squad, that was the only significance the Cajundome has had since the start of the fall semester.
On Monday, the team was able to conduct practice in the facility for the first time, two days prior to the team's exhibition opener against the Slovakian national team.
"Our guys were excited just to get in here," said Cajun coach Jessie Evans after the team worked out for just under two hours Monday afternoon. "The floor's down the rest of this week, so I told them that every opportunity they had, they can come over and shoot some, get accustomed to the building, the atmosphere and the surroundings."
The Cajuns tip off their season at 7:05 p.m. Wednesday as part of a doubleheader with the Louisiana women's squad, which hosts Henderson State in a 4:30 p.m. exhibition opener.
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It will be the first of two twinbills in four days, with the Cajun men hosting Arkansas Tech on Saturday at 7:05 p.m. after the Cajun women meet the Houston Jaguars at 4:30 p.m.
"It really hurts when you don't have a chance to practice where you play," Evans said. "I read a story from Western Kentucky that said the reason they lost to the Globetrotters (an exhibition game last week) was that it was the first day that they'd been able to get into Diddle Arena.
"They know now what we go through constantly."
The Slovaks, though, won't concern themselves about the Cajuns' lack of game-floor time. They'll play on different floors throughout a two-week tour of the South.
"I hope the things they do are entirely different than what we do," Evans said, "so we can get an indication of how far we are defensively. The foreign teams usually work well together as a team, shoot well from the perimeter and look to run.
"That's all things we need to see and work on ... contesting shots, playing solid defense and running the floor."
The Cajun squad opened practice back on Oct. 12 and hit the one-month mark in workouts on Monday. The Cajuns have held three full-scale scrimmages, but Wednesday's contest will be the first against an outside entity.
Evans said he wants to look at everything - and everybody - in Wednesday's action. He expects every eligible and available player to see extensive minutes in both exhibition games.
"We need to see if we continue to share the ball like we have in practice and see if we keep playing enthusiastically," he said. "We also have to develop some leaders. We need somebody, a perimeter guy or a big guy, it doesn't matter, to step up and give us some leadership vocally."
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