Louisiana vs Cal Irvine

[Cajunsmike]

Cal Irvine's record is 26 and 9 including an 11 and 4 road record. They beat North Dakota on the road in OT in their first CIT game and had a bye in the 2nd round. Someone told me their RPI is in the 80's which means they will be the 2nd best team (after Little Rock) to come to the Cajun Dome this year. They average 72 ppg, shoot 46 % from the field, 37% from three, garner 37 rebounds per game, and distribute 15 assists per game. Not sure yet if they are inside oriented or rely more on guard play. This all indicates they will be a challenge come Wed. night. Interesting in that they are than strong and are on the road again. They averaged about 3000 fans per game which is about 1000 less than we did during the regular season. Maybe they did not want to pay the host fee.

[Ragin4U]

Check out their roster. Tallest starting roster in NCAA.

http://ucirvinesports.com/sports/m-b...2015-16/roster

[CajunJack55]

Check out their roster. Tallest starting roster in NCAA.

http://ucirvinesports.com/sports/m-b...2015-16/roster

Wow

[BirdofParadise]

http://espn1420.com/cajuns-to-face-u...quarterfinals/

[RaginScotsman]

Looks like it'll be a tough game. Luckily they have to travel and not us. West coast trips are brutal.

[BeauCajun]

Doc Rivers' son on the roster.

[California Cajun]

Big West basketball must have been pretty good this year. Let's beat the Anteaters.

[SlickRick]

Maybe Shawn can figure out how he stayed out of foul trouble the first 95% of the season for this game because size will matter.

[MelRock]

... because size will matter.

That's what she said, sorry couldn't resist.

[Zeebart21]

Maybe Doc Rivers will tell his boy how much fun he had at Blackham back in 84(?).

Z

[CajunFan3406]

Taking a look at stats here.

Their starters in the front court are some trees, but I'm not overly impressed with their team rebounding numbers given their size. Looks like they have 6'-10" forward Mike Best and 7'-6" (wow!) center Mamadou Ndiaye. Ndiaye can block some shots, but averages nearly 5 less rebounds per game than Long. Best also averages less rebounds per game than Washington. Their backups on the front court look to be 7'-2" center Ioannis Dimakopoulos and 6-10" forward Jonathan Galloway. None are really outside scoring threats except backup C Dimakopoulos although he only averages less than one 3 per game, compared to Long who takes two 3's per game.

As a team, their season average is 37 rebs/game and holding opponents to 34.6. That's a +2.4 reb differential. We average 41.4 rebs/game and hold opponents 33.1, for a +8.3 reb differential. Advantage us.

They have us beat pretty well in the blocks department. As a team they have 181 on the season compared to our 117. Advantage them.

Overall shooting numbers are better than ours as well as 3-pt shooting. FG% for them is .462 compared to our .448, and 3FG% for them is .369 to our .314. The FG% number would have put them atop the S-B-C, and the 3FG% would put them at 2nd in the S-B-C behind Little Rock. Advantage them.

We got to the foul line nearly 26.4 times per game compared to their 20.5. Advantage us.

Their assist/turnover for the year is 1.25 compared to our 1.01. Advantage them.

Again going off of stats here, haven't really seen them play. You guys can make whatever postulations and guesses on how the games will go given those numbers. I'm just hoping we play well and win the game.

[CajunDreDog]

This dude is HUGE!!!!

"He's a very large person." -@bobbymarlin on Mamadou Ndiaye (7'6", 300 lbs) pic.twitter.com/SteyMdho18

— ESPN 1420 (@espn1420) March 21, 2016