Preview: Louisiana vs Milligan College

[NewsCopy]

The Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns exploded for their most points since 2002 and hit a school-record 16 three-point buckets in a 115-59 rout of Centenary on Saturday afternoon at the Cajundome.

The rest of the story

UL SI

[Gumbeaux]

So - pardon my ignorance and all - does walloping an NAIA school even show up on the W-L record?

[California Cajun]

So - pardon my ignorance and all - does walloping an NAIA school even show up on the W-L record?

What difference does it make if the event draws 12,000 people?

[Cajunsmike]

What difference does it make if the event draws 12,000 people?

Tonight's game does count in the official record. However, it is not used by the folks who calculate the RPI. At least this is one of the better NAIA teams which will allow us to improve by competing against them.

Our coaches would love to be able to play another D1 team at home. However, many of the other regional D1 universities refuse to play us home and home. These include USM, Tulane, Rice, and UNO. Northwestern State, La Tech, and McNeese should be applauded for not taking that approach. When you have that situation, scheduling becomes extremely difficult. Your team would be on the road 2/3 of the season if you took a stance of only D1 games. That is against conference policy and would affect the academic performance of the student athletes on the team. The only alternative here is to have enough funds in the budget to "buy" home games. That can cost over 50 grand. I have heard people say basketball is a rather inexpensive sport and our dollars should be focused elsewhere. When you consider the situation I just described and the fact the team will have to endure some pretty foolish travel situations when conference play begins, you realize that is a foolish argument. It just points out how far we have to go from a fund raising perspective to truly reach our potential.

[Gumbeaux]

Thanks Cajunsmike for the explanation - I plan on going, but I just was confused as to whether it counted in the W/L record. It would have been devastating to, for example, lose a player to injury, for what was strictly an exhibition game.

I also agree that its ridiculous we don't have some of those other schools willing to play home/home's - especially a school like UNO who was on death's doorstep not that long ago.

How badly does playing Centenary/Milligan (or the lack of RPI-qualifying games) hinder us? I suppose the Funbelch Conference is a 1-bid conference anyway, but for purposes of say - NIT bids, do these games hurt us if we shouldn't when the tourney championship?

[Cajunsmike]

Thanks Cajunsmike for the explanation - I plan on going, but I just was confused as to whether it counted in the W/L record. It would have been devastating to, for example, lose a player to injury, for what was strictly an exhibition game.

I also agree that its ridiculous we don't have some of those other schools willing to play home/home's - especially a school like UNO who was on death's doorstep not that long ago.

How badly does playing Centenary/Milligan (or the lack of RPI-qualifying games) hinder us? I suppose the Funbelch Conference is a 1-bid conference anyway, but for purposes of say - NIT bids, do these games hurt us if we shouldn't when the tourney championship?

Playing non D1 games does not hurt you in post season play consideration unless you lose them. We won all three of our non D1 games handily so there will be no impact. Again everyone would have preferred being able to compete against a D1 school but it was not feasible. I forgot to add Lamar to the list of regional schools that now refuse s to play home and home. Southeastern Louisiana is another although we have played them in the past in the pre-season "secret scrimmage" the NCAA allows. The University of Houston did play us home and home in the two previous years but I do not know if they will do that again now that they are in the AAC.

Note that a few years ago, the team that won the NCAA Division 1 tournament lost to a Division 2 team that did not advance far in their tournament. Basketball is a game that in which you can be humbled no matter how fundamental your play is if your shots do not fall that night. NIT now takes mid major regular season conference champions which do not win their conference tournament. They also take at large teams. Just like the NCAA tournament, the major schools with so so records often get picked over mid majors with good records.

[zephyr]

Playing non D1 games does not hurt you in post season play consideration unless you lose them. We won all three of our non D1 games handily so there will be no impact. Again everyone would have preferred being able to compete against a D1 school but it was not feasible. I forgot to add Lamar to the list of regional schools that now refuse s to play home and home. Southeastern Louisiana is another although we have played them in the past in the pre-season "secret scrimmage" the NCAA allows. The University of Houston did play us home and home in the two previous years but I do not know if they will do that again now that they are in the AAC.

Note that a few years ago, the team that won the NCAA Division 1 tournament lost to a Division 2 team that did not advance far in their tournament. Basketball is a game that in which you can be humbled no matter how fundamental your play is if your shots do not fall that night. NIT now takes mid major regular season conference champions which do not win their conference tournament. They also take at large teams. Just like the NCAA tournament, the major schools with so so records often get picked over mid majors with good records.

Mike, has there ever been any type of explanation as to why these schools refuse to play us home and home? Its not like we're trying to get LSU or Texas here. These schools are regional schools and most are not even high quality teams...That is somewhat confusing.

[BirdofParadise]

There's a blog coming next week about the art of scheduling.

Actually there are very few opportunities to schedule home and home with regional opponents.

Like I said, blog coming......