Final: Louisiana (83) at UALR (79)

[ManAboutTown]

Strong enough to get an at large NCAA bid. We would have gatherings at homes on selection Sunday. Knew we were in either the NCAA or NIT. From off death penalty thru Bobby P; not all years were great, but we were competitive. Though some use Marty as a measuring stick for "good" Cajun basketball, many view him as the beginning of the decline. This slide began long before any football push. Our non conference schedule now is a complete joke compared to back then.

Yes

[CajunRage]

Strong enough to get an at large NCAA bid. We would have gatherings at homes on selection Sunday. Knew we were in either the NCAA or NIT. From off death penalty thru Bobby P; not all years were great, but we were competitive. Though some use Marty as a measuring stick for "good" Cajun basketball, many view him as the beginning of the decline. This slide began long before any football push. Our non conference schedule now is a complete joke compared to back then.

Completely Devils advocate here because I'm not sure I believe in this, but just hear me out. With the conference being so bad, we would have to have an unreal non-conference schedule to get an at large bid. 3 issues with that. One, the teams we want to schedule have to want to schedule us as well. They have their own arrangements. Two, if we get them scheduled, we have to go on the road. Three, how many of those games do we actually win? Why not schedule teams you can beat at home, get the entire roster playing time, and use non-conference to prepare for the only opportunity to get into the tournament. A sunbelt tournament win. I'm not a proponent of this. Just trying to think of a reasonable explanation for the d-2 opponents, etc.

[Zeebart21]

That's the rub with the older fans who know what it like to have a team that could compete on the national level. So many leagues have moved up to D-1 and all have surpassed us. Even with EP and Hunter in the league, our conference sucks.

Nothing like the old days when we took Doc Rivers and Rick Majerus to the woodshed in Blackham....

[Boomer]

Nothing like the old days when we took Doc Rivers and Rick Majerus to the woodshed in Blackham....

---And the Mail man and others a few times--Those Lamar, LSUNO, McNeese and LTURs were really good Bball!!!

[zephyr]

How many baskets did the three of them make in the last 15 minutes? All I'm saying is that when a high school player is being recruited, a prerequisite should be that they can hit an outside jump shot. Are you confident, with the game on the line, any of the players on the court could make a 15 foot jumper. I'm not.

Yes, I am.

[CajunSaint]

Nothing like the old days when we took Doc Rivers and Rick Majerus to the woodshed in Blackham....

or, tark the shark and ed ratleff. those were the days, my friend.

[Zeebart21]

or, tark the shark and ed ratleff. those were the days, my friend.

yessir.

Z

[ZoomZoom]

Or "The X Man" and I think it was Chuck Person with Auburn? And on our side, we had some sky walkers consistently. Alonzo Allen is the benchmark, but George Almons (sp?), Fig and others were right up there. It was something you expected to see every time out, not a once in a while thing. Oh, the Great Alaskan Shootout...gosh, won the whole darn thing and ruined the media love fest debut with Georgetown's Patrick Ewing.

Cut to the chase, I feel we began to slide when Marty 1) got off on the wrong foot wanting to charge for public speaking, which angered the fan base and 2) thought it was good to schedule almost the whole SWAC as our home non conference schedule. When you were playing the likes of Auburn, Wichita State, Pepperdine, Weber State, and even Georgia at home, that was a complete b/s schedule. NO name draws. Now we get an occasional Texas Tech or such. And in tournaments, we were competitive. Now we are speed bumps.

The other night people around us were all thrilled with the back to back 115 point efforts over two smurf teams. I was sitting there just thinking, "When your entire starting lineup is taller and more athletic than your opponent, you best hang a hundred." Wasn't impressed other than one dunk.

Not attempting to be political by using a phrase, but the more the older fans fade away, the more the "new normal" is going to be accepted as good. We were good enough to have games where everybody played. I'm not saying we were the greatest thing since sliced bread back then, but at least we were competitive on the national level.

With so many conferences now D-1, it's hard to recruit. The only way this conference gets better is one team steps it up and consistently brings every league member to the woodshed both home and away and become competitive nationally. Then it comes down to lead, follow, or get out the way. Georgia State is trying this year, but not succeeding nationally as they would need to to fill this role. So, where we go from here?

[CajunEXPRESS]

Thanks, this is what I have been trying to convey.

Maybe the new norm is to view being good in the celler league makes some feel like progress is being made. That might be okay if we could string some impressive wins. Instead we have McBrokeback loses, a Northwestern State loses as being good loses because they are going to be tops in the Southland.

Then we finally win at UALR , UALR in overtime for God's sake as a statement win.

God bless have a great January.

[BirdofParadise]

The "old" days have been gone for about 25 years now.

I, like everyone else, believe we had some great teams back then. (I wasn't around for Bo). And, yes, we got an at large bid to the NCAA.

More than 30 years ago.

What was the biggest factor between then and now?

T-E-L-E-V-I-S-I-O-N.

Do you realize the last time Bobby Paschal took his team to the NCAA tournament, first round games weren't even televised nationally? Regional networks televised the games and hoped one of the big three networks would pick it up.

The decline started about the time Marty got there, not because he wanted to charge to speak, but because television started running college basketball.

Add that to the shift of budgets to be heavy on the football side and you have a formula for what has happened.

There have been exceptions: WKU has funded its basketball program better than other mid majors. Ditto Middle Tennessee, who had great success a couple of years ago but is back to being just another mid major.

You complain about Marty's schedule? You know what the university was willing to do back then? Pay guarantees. He was allowed to go out and buy some games. How many guarantee games did Marty play? I remember very few. He'd play anyone who would return the visit to Lafayette. Memphis State...Ohio State....Massachusetts and others came to the Dome because of that philosophy.

Now UL plays guarantee games and can't afford to buy a single D-1 opponent. And, that's happened to the rest of the 'Belt as well.

And you wonder why our team and our peers aren't as good as they were.

The old days are gone....and they aren't coming back....Ever.

[CajunEXPRESS]

Defeated attitude. I expect my coaches and administrators to find a way to do this. Clearly lots of other so called mid majors have found a way.

By the way? Isn't that why many of us recognize this as yet another reason to part with the SBC.

[BirdofParadise]

Who would you be talking about? Give me a list of the mid majors who play FBS football that have had regular success on the court. They exist but you're going to find out it doesn't take long to call the roll.

Yes. It's another reason to want to get out of the SBC. CUSA however is marginally better. They are ranked in the bottom half in basketball now as well. (19th I believe as of now.)