NCAA bid further evidence of UL’s improvement
By BOB ARDOIN
Special to The Advocate
Published: Mar 16, 2007
LAFAYETTE — J. Kelley Hall spent four years selling a dream that became a reality this season.
Looking back at the condition of the University of Louisiana women’s basketball program he chose to transform starting in 2002, Hall said the product wasn’t always an easy sell.
“I honestly didn’t think it would be as hard as it’s been,” said Hall, whose Ragin’ Cajuns are playing in their first NCAA Division I women’s basketball tournament.
“However, before we got here, (UL) had lost so many games. It was a bad job.”
UL’s record before Hall arrived speaks for itself.
From 1990 to 2000, the Lady Cajuns averaged four wins a season. In one of those seasons (1991-92), UL was 0-27 and three times during the same decade, the team won two games or less. Hall’s first two teams were 21-34 but since then UL is 65-27.
The year before Hall got the UL job, he said, the team’s RPI, an index measuring a team’s overall strength was about 300. At the end of this season it was in the 50s.
When 11-seeded UL (25-8) tips off against sixth-seeded Marquette (25-6) in an NCAA regional game at about 1:30 p.m. CDT Saturday at the Frank Erwin Center in Austin, Texas, Hall’s team will have already set a team-record for victories in a season.
Hall said there was little to offer recruits when he first came to Lafayette, and despite the success, some of those problems still exist.
UL’s budget, Hall said, is about $400,000 annually, a figure which he said ranks 12th out of 13 Sun Belt Conference teams.
“That $400,000 is everything, including our salaries, recruiting, scholarships,” he said.
UL’s home court is a renovated physical education building, Earl K. Long Gymnasium, which was built in 1939 and barely holds 1,000 fans.
Hall’s modest-sized office is located on the building’s second floor, just a few steps from the gym’s main lobby.
“We go to a lot of schools where there are spectacular facilities that cost $10 million,” Hall said. “Here we can’t do that. We can offer them two things, education and basketball.”
The education factor is something Hall can back up.
“Of the players that we have had in our program, if you stay with us for four years, you are going to graduate,” he said. “The kids who have come through our program have had a graduation rate of 100 percent and that holds true for the seniors on our team.”
One of Hall’s strengths, he said, is recruiting.
Before coming to UL, Hall recruited for two seasons at Louisville. He held the same position at Auburn from 1996-2000 and before that Hall directed the recruiting at Cal State Fullerton (1994-96) and Mississippi State (1992-94).
His career began at Troy (1982-83), also as a recruiting coordinator.
Hall said recruiting the type of players he wanted at UL was difficult at first, but is becoming easier.
“We’re starting to get a lot of repeat business,” Hall said. “Things are getting easier now and this season is helping us quite a bit.
“Two years ago we got to the conference championship game and we were only one win away from getting an automatic berth to the NCAAs.
“The main thing that is helping us is the local kids who are talented are starting to see now that we are doing it. The thing that I see happening now that wasn’t happening before is the good players are starting to call us now.”
Hall and his wife Meredith are listed as co-head coaches and he said both are now part of the Lafayette community.
“People have said that we aren’t from around here, but that isn’t true,” he said. “If you look closely, both of our daughters (Brynley Michele and Jordyn Kelley) were both born in Lafayette. We’re not looking to leave and Lafayette has become our home.”
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