MURFREESBORO, Tenn. - OK, admit it. You gave up on them, just like you did the Ragin' Cajun football team.

When the University of Louisiana men's basketball squad was limping along at 5-14, with five of their seven Sun Belt Conference losses by double digits, you questioned whether they'd survive the season, much less be playing in the Sun Belt quarterfinals today.

There is no evidence that Robert Lee and Rickey Bustle had any clandestine conversations in late January. If they had, Bustle would have probably told Lee to hang in there (he says that a lot) and that things have a way of turning around.

Bustle became an overnight authority on turnarounds. His football team was 1-5 in mid-October, hadn't won a Sun Belt game and had absolutely blown an apparent win at Arkansas State to seemingly end any hopes of success.

But that squad somehow regrouped, went on the road and got a couple of big wins, and eventually claimed a share of its first-ever league title. That team will take a five-game winning streak into September.

One of those wins came across the street from the Murphy Center, at Middle's Floyd Stadium, when the football squad rallied late for a win that sparked the late rush.

Lee will be hoping his charges can match that big win today, taking a victory on the MT campus that will continue a late-season push and begin a string of what will have to be three wins in three days.

Ironically, a win today over Troy will match the five-game streak that was so improbable for the football team last fall. But what the UL basketball team has done was equally improbable.

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Dan McDonald
dmcdonald!@theadvertiser.com