Coach Hall challenges Lady Cajuns
<blockquote><p align=justify>Advertiser-Dan McDonald
LAKE CHARLES - Better shooting, more consistent rebounding, and greater production from the post players ... it's a lot of improvements to ask for in a short amount of time.
But that's the challenge Louisiana head women's basketball coach J. Kelley Hall has put in front of his Lady Cajun squad for tonight's road contest at McNeese State.
The Cajuns (3-10) venture out of Sun Belt Conference play for the next-to-last time this season in tonight's 7 p.m. contest at MSU's Burton Coliseum, and will look to snap a five-game loss streak continued on Saturday in a 65-52 league setback against New Orleans.
Hall, though, saw improvement in his team's Monday drills.
"We responded pretty well," he said. "We're still working on our shooting percentage and rebounding the ball, but I think we'll do those better on Tuesday."
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The Cajuns shot 40 percent, turned the ball over 19 times and were beaten on the boards 43-32 by a smaller UNO squad on Saturday. And, the Cajuns' four post players played a combined 80 minutes and scored only seven points.
"They got some rebounds," said Hall, "but we only got two on the offensive end. I'm not sure how you can do that if you're a bigger team. We've been playing against 5-11 posts the last two games, but they've been banging on our kids and we haven't responded. It's disrupted our rhythm."
UL Lafayette will look to reverse that trend against a 3-9 Cowgirl squad that snapped a four-game losing streak in a 69-65 win over UL Monroe on Saturday.
The Cajuns will also be going for their second straight win over the Cowgirls, after taking a 72-63 home win in the next-to-last game of last season. Senior Sarah Richey had a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds in last year's win, and enters tonight's game averaging 10.0 points per outing.
McNeese is coached by Carol Sensley - wife of former Cajun standout defensive back Tim Sensley - and is led by six-foot Australian senior Kellie Burbridge, who is averaging 17.6 points and 7.2 rebounds and shooting 52.2 percent from the field.
Senior guard Charlotte Green leads the Cajuns with a 14.3 average and has 33 three-pointers, four of them coming in six attempts on Saturday in the loss to UNO when she had 14 points. Junior guard Sharee Glenn is the other twin-digit scorer at 10.7 and had a team-high 19 points on Saturday.
Hall, though, had his biggest praise for backup point guard Ashley Blanche, who came off the bench to play 34 minutes against UNO and scored 12 points on 5-of-8 shooting.
"I'm the type coach that will leave somebody in if they're playing well," Hall said, "and I was really pleased with the way Ashley stepped up."
Hall will also hope the change of venue helps his squad, which begins a four-game road trip with tonight's game.
"We haven't won at Long Gym this year," he said. "We've won at the Cajundome and we've gotten two of our three wins on the road. So maybe things will be different for us over there."
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Petrakova assumes pivotal role for Lady Cajuns
<blockquote><p align=justify>Advertiser-Dan McDonald
LAFAYETTE - One year ago, Anna Petrakova faced a world of uncertainty.
Her 17th birthday found her in a new country with no real friends, surrounded by strangers and trying to adapt to college life as a mid-term enrollee.
She also was thrust into a world of basketball that was foreign to her, trying to pick up in days what the rest of the UL Lafayette women's team had been working on for months. And not only was she expected to catch up in a hurry, but she also was being viewed as a major contributor to a struggling team.
More than one person has run home to the comfort of parents when faced with such challenges. But it's a long run to Russia.
Home and parents were thousands of miles away in Moscow, where Petrakova had only recently graduated from High School 142.
She did have a sister living in Baton Rouge, but there had to be times that the Atchafalaya Basin looked as wide as the Atlantic Ocean that separated her from her loved ones.
"Everything was different," Petrakova said this week. "Just adjusting to the American lifestyle, everything about school, all of it."
But Petrakova's will was just as strong as her athletic 6-foot-3 frame, and opposing players in the Sun Belt Conference are only beginning to discover both of those strengths.
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"I always thought it was the right thing to do from the beginning," Petrakova said of coming to the U.S. "I wanted to test myself, to see how I'd do by myself without anybody looking after me. I think I've pretty much done OK."
What she's done this season is take over a pivotal role on the Cajun squad, averaging 9.3 points and a team-leading 7.9 rebounds per game heading into Saturday's Sun Belt Conference road contest against Florida International. She's shooting over 46 percent from the field and almost 87 percent from the free throw line.
"There's no question she's the most improved player on our team," said first-year Cajun coach J. Kelley Hall. "I said at the start of the year that I thought she was going to do a lot of good things for us, and she hasn't disappointed anyone."
In a recent stretch of four games for the 3-10 Cajun team, she had back-to-back "double-double" outings with 16 points and 10 rebounds against Savannah State and 16 points and 13 boards against Cincinnati. In fact, she was one point and one rebound away from four straight "double-doubles."
"She made more progress than any player on the team in individual and strength and conditioning workouts before the season started," Hall said. "That's what's helping her right now."
Petrakova played in 15 games but only sparingly after coming to UL Lafayette prior to last year's spring semester. She scored only 19 points in those games and had 23 rebounds.
"Last year wasn't the best year for me as far as basketball," she said. "I didn't get to play much, and when I played I probably didn't open up as much as I could have."
Hall is more definitive.
"She should have been redshirted last season," he said. "She wasn't ready to play."
Hall and the rest of the first-year Cajun staff have already been a big influence on Petrakova in the months since he accepted the post.
"They've been very supportive," she said. "They believe in me and want me to do my best. He told me from the first day when he saw us playing that he believed in me.
"His strong point is post play, and that's helped me a lot. He knows all the moves, and I felt that I could go to him and ask whatever I needed to know anytime."
Petrakova has a solid background in international basketball, having played on an age-group national championship team in Russia in 1997 at age 13. Her Gloria team also finished third in the age-15 national championships two years later.
"I've been playing since I was 8," she said. "I attended a special basketball school in Moscow most of the time when I was growing up."
She also worked out with an adult professional team in Moscow to gain experience before coming to the U.S. just over a year ago in August of 2001. Her sister, then an LSU student, and her husband lived in Baton Rouge.
She planned on playing high school ball there, but wasn't eligible since she had already graduated from a Moscow high school, so she audited classes at Lee High to improve her English and become more accustomed to American life.
She also worked with former LSU standout and now Nicholls State head coach Ricky Blanton on her hoop game. Blanton was an undersized center much of a highly-successful Tiger career and learned the low-post game the hard way -- much like Petrakova.
"He helped me stay in shape and taught me some American aspects of the game," she said. "Basketball's more of an individual game here. In Russia, it's more team oriented. Here, if you get the ball in the post, you're expected to look to score one-on-one."
Her many life changes could have been a tall task for someone who only turned 18 a month ago. Even as a sophomore, she's the youngest player on the Cajun squad and probably the youngest in the Sun Belt.
"People are always surprised when they find out how hold I am," she said. "They think I'm about 20 ... I guess I look older than I am."
Her youth also gives her confidence that the best part of her basketball career is still in front of her.
"I definitely think I can do a lot better," she said. "I continue to work on my offense, and I need to get stronger and in better physical shape. I need to work a lot more."
But she's not complaining. Life's pretty good in her world right now. She's improved her floor game, she's in a cutting-edge university major as part of the Business Systems Analysis and Technology curriculum, and her sister Marina now has a job at UL Lafayette's Dupre Library, only two buildings away from where Petrakova seeks more hoop glory at Earl K. Long Gym.
The only thing missing is her team finding more success. The Cajuns take a four-game losing streak into Saturday's game against an FIU team that went 27-6 last year, won the league tournament title and played in the NCAA Tournament.
"We haven't played as well as we can," she said. "We have a lot of potential, and we're looking forward to playing FIU very much. We've played some really good teams, and that's helped us get ready for the conference. We've been on a bad streak, but we're better than that."
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Fla. International cruises by Lady Cajuns
<blockquote><p align=justify>Advertiser
MIAMI - Louisiana's Lady Cajun basketball team is still looking for its first Sun Belt win of the season.
The Cajun women remained winless in league play, after dropping a 79-48 decision to Florida International on Saturday night in Miami.
A 17-0 run by the Golden Panthers in the opening minutes of the second half spelled doom for the Cajuns.
The second half started with an offensive rebound and basket in the paint by FIU, then a three-pointer by Ivelina Vrancheva - producing a deficit the Cajuns worked hard to trim - but was up to 11 points in just one minute.
The Lady Cajuns fell behind by 23 points with 15:27 left. UL committed five turnovers, not scoring a single point, trailing 53-30 with less than five minutes gone in the second half.
Cormisha Cotton, who had 18 points and seven rebounds last season vs. the Cajuns, led FIU with 20 points and 12 rebounds.
Cotton scored 18 points and grabbed eight boards in the first half. Vrancheva recorded six points and four assists during the FIU 17-0 run and finished the game with 12 points and 11 assists.
Sarah Richey and Sharee Glenn led the Cajuns with 14 points apiece, although both scored 12 points in the first half. Charlotte Green was held to three points, and now needs 42 for 1,000 in her career.
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The Cajuns trailed the entire first half and were down by 11 just one minute into the second half.
Despite efforts by Louisiana to deny the Golden Panthers access to the ball inside, FIU did the majority of its damage in the post and on the glass.
FIU out rebounded the Cajuns 39-25, including 18-10 in the first half.
The Cajuns will travel to Western Kentucky and then to Middle Tennessee on Thursday and Saturday, respectively.
Florida International 79, UL Lafayette 48
UL LAFAYETTE (48)
Richey 6-18 2-2 14; Gleen 5-10 3-4 14; White 3-4 0-2 6; Tolston 1-3 1-3 4; Petrakova 1-4 2-2 4; Green 1-6 0-0 3; Menter 0-2 2-4 2; Scott 0-1 1-2 1; Blanche 0-2 0-0 0. Totals 17-50 11-19 48.
FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL (79)
Cotton 10-15 0-0 20; Cinite 4-8 5-5 13; Vrancheva 4-6 1-2 12; Shafer 4-9 2-2 11; Mesa 4-5 3-4 11; Tomova 2-5 1-1 5; Heller 1-6 0-0 2. Totals 29-54 17-20 79.
Halftime - FIU 36, UL 30. 3-point goals-UL 3-13 (Gleen 1-3; Green 1-4; Tolston 1-3; Blanche 0-1; Richey 0-2), FIU 4-11 (Vrancheva 3-4; Shafer 1-5; Tomova 0-1; Heller 0-1). Fouled out--UL-None, FIU-None. Rebounds-UL 25 (Petrakova 6), FIU 39 (Cotton 12). Assists-UL 10 (Green 3; White 3; Petrakova 3), FIU 25 (Vrancheva 11). Total fouls-UL 18, FIU 17. A-724.
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Lady Cajuns ready to return to new E.K. Long
<blockquote><p align=justify>Advertiser-Dan McDonald
LAFAYETTE — Thursday and Saturday will be a homecoming of sorts for Louisiana's womens basketball squad.
The Lady Cajuns haven’t played at Long Gym since Jan. 11, and since that time the facility has undergone several changes including new backboards and goal standards as well as new scoreboards on both ends.
More importantly, head coach J. Kelley Hall is hoping the new boards and rims will help a squad that has struggled mightily on the road with its shooting.
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The Cajuns (3-13) didn’t score 50 points in any of their recent road games, falling to Florida International, Western Kentucky and Middle Tennessee in an eight-day period to fall to 0-6 in Sun Belt Conference play.
In those games, UL Lafayette made only 49 field goals and shot 30.4 percent from the floor, scoring a total of only 132 points.
“That’s the biggest thing we’ve got to do,” Hall said. “We just haven’t shot it well. We’ve tried to change our offense to get different, better shots.
“We know we’ve got to practice at a higher rate of speed, but we haven’t been able to do that, and I really think it’s affected our shooting.”
The Cajuns are hitting only 35.9 percent from the floor as a team this year, next-to-last in the Sun Belt, and are at the bottom of the league in scoring with only 49.6 points per game.
The squad will hope to improve all those marks Thursday and Saturday when they host North Texas (8-9, 3-3) and Denver (11-9, 5-1) in a pair of 7 p.m. conference games at Long Gym.
“They both present problems for us,” Hall said, “but the biggest thing we have to do is take care of us. I’m really disappointed right now ... I expected us to have a better record, and maybe we as coaches didn’t do a good job. But these kids haven’t given up and they haven’t quit.”
One who hasn’t is Charlotte Green, the senior who needs only 19 points to become the program’s ninth 1,000-point career scorer.
Green has played all year with a knee injury, one diagnosed now as a torn meniscus.
“She’s played all year on that,” Hall said. “It takes three or four days after she plays for the swelling to go down, so she hasn’t been able to practice much. And you can tell watching her play that she can’t move off the dribble like she could before.
“I can’t imagine now much that hurts, and I admire her for playing through this. She’s a senior, and she knows if she has surgery that’s her career, so she’s going to go on it as long as she can.”
Green is averaging 13.2 points per game with 39 three-pointers, while fellow guard Sharee Glenn is at 10.7. The post duo of Sarah Richey (9.9, 5.4 rebounds) and Anna Petrakova (9.1, 8.3 rebounds) are also near double figures, but other than those four the rest of the squad is totaling only 9.4 points per game.
“Where we are,” Hall said, “we have to have good games from everybody. I don’t think we’ve had a point off the bench in either of our last two games.”
The new goals were installed during the Cajuns’ extended road trip.
“Today will be the first time we’ll shoot on them,” Hall said prior to Monday’s workout. “Maybe it’ll help.”
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Louisiana vs North Texas: Earl K. Long Gym
What do you think of going to E.K. Long Gym to watch the Lady Cajuns take on the Mean Green, while we listen to the men do the same on 107.7 fm.
You can check out the new scoreboards and goals.
Hey we need to show that investing in Louisiana sports pays off.
