The Book: 2006-2007 Ragin' Cajuns Basketball

[JamesTheJeweler]

man, i know its early but with the new guys coming in, those that will be eligible, and the maturation of the new guys now we are gonna be scary good! if randell daigle is as good as advertised, barksdale coming back, and if lago continues to improve it will be awesome to have that kind of depth at point! dees will be back! if we can get a big man in the middle we could dominate. of course that won't matter much if they can't play together. but i think we see how coach got these guys to come around. now about us. we need to do our part! would be great to get 6-10 thousand people for the games. we can start be filling it up this weekend! no excuses!

[AstroCajun]

If coach Lee can get us into the tournament and make so noise and maybe win it all my opinion of him will change. I thought his team showed some promise early in the season. What do we have to do to make it in?

If you are going to make nice here, could you please stop sniping at us on ULM and McNeese's board?

I called out a ULMer for hypocricy and you labled me a k-sipper for it. That's not cool in my book.

[SlappyCajun]

Grandigo is extremely talented. And I think Bloom is a great player. Do not count out La'Ryan Gary. He struggled a little in his senior season and then injured his knee. But he was one of the best players in the state before that. 6'7" 220 lbs. Big strong wing with very solid fundamentals.

That is not including Damon Forest, a suprisingly athletic very solid player.

Brandon Dison, a six four point guard/2 guard that is a defensive specialist. Who regularly shut down the better players in the Houston area.

And Randell Daigle, who will be the best shooting point guard that we have had, probably since Michael Allen brought the ball up the floor.

[Cajunsmike]

Grandigo is extremely talented. And I think Bloom is a great player. Do not count out La'Ryan Gary. He struggled a little in his senior season and then injured his knee. But he was one of the best players in the state before that. 6'7" 220 lbs. Big strong wing with very solid fundamentals.

That is not including Damon Forest, a suprisingly athletic very solid player.

Brandon Dison, a six four point guard/2 guard that is a defensive specialist. Who regularly shut down the better players in the Houston area.

And Randell Daigle, who will be the best shooting point guard that we have had, probably since Michael Allen brought the ball up the floor.

LaRyan Gary was the leading scorer in last summer's LSHAA All Star Game. His injury which limited him in his senior year may have healed by then.

[Boomer]

LaRyan Gary was the leading scorer in last summer's LSHAA All Star Game. His injury which limited him in his senior year may have healed by then.

We need the aircraft carrier----What was the name of the coach from Marquette--turned sportscaster--- that said that one day--Mc guire-Alley---Think that his brother coached also!!!

[CajunAmos]

Al Maquire. I think his brother was Dick Maguire.

[Turbine]

In hind sight I think it would have served this young team well to have had a patsy out of conference schedule.

I might be wrong but I think with just a little more confidence going into conference play the team would have gotten a couple more victories early on.

jmo

[Mineshaft]

In hind sight I think it would have served this young team well to have had a patsy out of conference schedule.

I might be wrong but I think with just a little more confidence going into conference play the team would have gotten a couple more victories early on.

jmo

Doubt it. Patsy or no patys schedule they would of lost 20

[AstroCajun]

In hind sight I think it would have served this young team well to have had a patsy out of conference schedule.

I might be wrong but I think with just a little more confidence going into conference play the team would have gotten a couple more victories early on.

jmo

If I could fix one more thing, a healthy Mo Barksdale would have helped. If we'd have won half of those close games we lost, we'd be looking at a totally different season even in a down year.

[Cajunsmike]

If I could fix one more thing, a healthy Mo Barksdale would have helped. If we'd have won half of those close games we lost, we'd be looking at a totally different season even in a down year.

In retrospect, in a few days even the coaches will be glad this very tough season has ended. They can now move on to preparing the new talent to come on board. Last night's result was really cast one week ago at FIU. Had we won that game, I think we would have won Saturday and played at home last night. At FIU, in addition to missing free throws, we missed 13 layups. That is when the season really ended. BOP has said all year that NT has the best talent in the league. With hindsight, we can see that we were lucky to be competitive with them the first two times. Scoring 78 points and making 80% of our free throws will win most of the time. Last night it wasn't good enough not because of a lack of effort, but because the opposition played to their potential. Watch for UNT to do well in Lafayette.

Plan for the spring-monitor the guys sitting out and insure they earn eligibility, find a quality big man and sign him in April, and insure Gradigno passes the ACT/graduates with the needed GPA. He made a 16 the first time he took the ACT without preparing and you need a 17. He may have earned the 17 by now so this may be a moot point. Plan for the summer-get as many guys in summer school as possible and give them a set of basketball improvement needs to work on. Unfortunately, they probably won't have the indoor facility for this aspect as it may not be ready until late summer. They will do their summer work at Bourgeois where they will compete with regular students for the court. I hear we will have as many as nine kids in summer school, including all four who sat out this year.

Finally, it is obvious if you know Coach Lee only on an acquaitance basis, that he is fiercely competitive. It had to be really hard on him to go through this season with the hope he is building something for the long term by making the decisions he did. He knows that results of this year are not acceptable again.

CajunsMike

[MiamiCajun32]

In hind sight I think it would have served this young team well to have had a patsy out of conference schedule.

I might be wrong but I think with just a little more confidence going into conference play the team would have gotten a couple more victories early on.

jmo

This team would not lost most games against patsies too. Just too inconsistent and misguided to have confidence. Sunbelt play was mostly patsies in itself, but did not matter. Got on a roll there towards the end, but not enough organization and confidence to keep from collapsing down home stretch. This team is capable of losing by 40 to any team on any given night, no matter from the southland or ACC conference. Hopefully things will be better next year, but I think the days of consistently winning 20+ each season is unfortunately over. Two more seasons of this coaching staff will make it very difficult for the next staff to turn things around and keep a great winning tradition going when it has by that time been sidetracked by 4 horrible seasons.

Last night's elimination game against North Texas was case in point about how poorly prepared this team has been.

For all those that think all of this change is for the good and that the program is actually being saved by Lee, from the alleged destruction by Evans, just remember this: 9-21 in 3rd season. No excuse.... If cupboard was bare when Evans left, then Lee had an entire year to recruit for replacements needed and now we are two years past that point. If he thought going after high school talent was best, then he should not have recruited all the transfers and then proclaimed sweet sixteen before last season, then dumped all those guys. But it is not just about talent. There is young and experienced talent on this team, but the perception and propaganda out there is that there is no talent. There always has to be an excuse with this program these days after all. This team is more talented than most sunbelt teams but that did not translate to victories anyways.

What will be the excuse next year? Then again the winning tradition has been replaced by mediocre goals and expectations so an improvement to, let's say 13-15, will be cause for celebration for this coaching staff and most of the people on this board (but not for most of the poeple represented by those empty seats in Cajun Dome).

[Turbine]

This team would not lost most games against patsies too. Just too inconsistent and misguided to have confidence. Sunbelt play was mostly patsies in itself, but did not matter. Got on a roll there towards the end, but not enough organization and confidence to keep from collapsing down home stretch. . . .

UL's first 5 opponents have a combined record of 100-40 that is an average of 20 wins and only 8 losses between UL's first 5 opponents.

This was the wrong year to have a brutal out of conference schedule. In my opinion getting beat down causes a player to over-think situations it causes coaches to keep starting over in the middle of a season at a point when they should be working on small things.

Early in the season at a point that you may know it is the toughest early schedule in school history, you have no idea they will have a 100-40 record. So what happens is you regroup when you should stay the course. You lost to a much better team not because you were bad; except at that point in time you do not know this.

In my opinion, a young team should be coddled, not tested. By the time UL got into conference play they had no idea who they were if they were coming or going.

So why the tough schedule? It was recommended by Wright Waters and implemented by David Walker.

[NCAA or BUST]

Hindsight? Milsaps should have been redshirted.

[RCAJUN90]

In hind sight I think it would have served this young team well to have had a patsy out of conference schedule.

I might be wrong but I think with just a little more confidence going into conference play the team would have gotten a couple more victories early on.

jmo

I would have considered McNeese and SFA to be patsies in basketball.

[AstroCajun]

I would have considered McNeese and SFA to be patsies in basketball.

You'd be wrong about McNeese when the game is at McNeese. We've had much better teams leave LC with a last second loss (due largely to the home cooking).