MBB Final: Louisiana 82, Southeastern 74

[IberiaCajun]

Best half-time entertainment at a basketball game in a long time.
Bienvenue Billy!

[Cajunsmike]

That first 15 minutes was forgettable. SELU's 5'9" point guard threw down an alley oop. That was impressive. As he goes, so does the Lions.

Cajuns were successful in running Lions off the three point line which is why they shot an overall high % as they got good looks near the basket. Lions also did a good job in running the offense as they often took it within ten seconds and ended up with a decent shot. Key for us was the boards. When we made our 17 to 0 run late in the first half, Bryce was a beast and seemed to get every rebound. Looks like he was upset with the way things were going and took it upon himself to right the ship. Crowd helped team during that run and Coach Napier said that in his comments. Their little guard could definitely play for us. I am sure he played against Bryce in HS as he is from Helen Cox in New Orleans. It was obvious the Lions were up for this game and it is disappointing it took us awhile to match their intensity. One positive was our offense in the second half as we ended up with 6 guys in double figures. That shows we at least played team ball on offense. Left handed dunk by Marquetti was also impressive. As far as the competition in the league is concerned; I agree with the post stating UTA, the Georgia schools, and Troy may be tough competition. I would add Coastal Carolina. We beat them on the road late last year but it went to the wire. They then went on to the championship game in one of the buy in tournaments. Last night they lost to Wake Forest by 4. Note we play them on Saturday January 6.

[IberiaCajun]

In the Cajundome!

[Hatch]

Cajuns were successful in running Lions off the three point line which is why they shot an overall high % as they got good looks near the basket. Lions also did a good job in running the offense as they often took it within ten seconds and ended up with a decent shot. Key for us was the boards. When we made our 17 to 0 run late in the first half, Bryce was a beast and seemed to get every rebound. Looks like he was upset with the way things were going and took it upon himself to right the ship. Crowd helped team during that run and Coach Napier said that in his comments. Their little guard could definitely play for us. I am sure he played against Bryce in HS as he is from Helen Cox in New Orleans. It was obvious the Lions were up for this game and it is disappointing it took us awhile to match their intensity. One positive was our offense in the second half as we ended up with 6 guys in double figures. That shows we at least played team ball on offense. Left handed dunk by Marquetti was also impressive. As far as the competition in the league is concerned; I agree with the post stating UTA, the Georgia schools, and Troy may be tough competition. I would add Coastal Carolina. We beat them on the road late last year but it went to the wire. They then went on to the championship game in one of the buy in tournaments. Last night they lost to Wake Forest by 4. Note we play them on Saturday January 6.

Good call on Coastal Carolina, they also just lost to South Carolina by only 2. Interesting to see they were able to get Wake Forest to come to their gym, I would like to know the details on that. Maybe Wake just wanted to take the team to Myrtle Beach to celebrate the end of the semester.

[ZoomZoom]

Napier giving props to Savoie pretty much proves Savoie is on board. No reason to call him T-Slow anymore guys.

Glad our guys responded tonight. Here’s hoping Clemson thinks they can mail it in Friday PM and we show up. We play serious ball the first 13 minutes of game and last 4 minutes, would had been a 20+ route. Focus was lacking.

[RaginFan2]

Napier giving props to Savoie pretty much proves Savoie is on board. No reason to call him T-Slow anymore .

T-Deliberate??? Nah, Doc does things very well, but he won't rush into them.

[RaginDave]

Ya ll fellas think were good enough to win regular season title ?

It will not be a cake walk.

UTA and Georgia Southern are going to be very good.

UTA has a good win over BYU and tough losses to Alabama and Northern Iowa and Creighton who all have top 30 RPI's. They are 8-4 overall, they do have a bad loss to FGCU on their resume. But the loss to Alabama was by 1, the loss to UNI was by 4 and the loss to Creighton was by 9.

Georgia Southern is sitting at 9-3 with wins over Wake Forest and CSUB. They have losses to a good Towson team, Bradley and CSUB.

The other teams in the conference that could challenge or be good enough to beat some of the better teams now and then are:

Georgia State--Always talented with a win vs Tulane earlier in the year.
Coastal Carolina--who has been up and down all year so far
Troy--very talented team who has struggled out of the gate, but played Kentucky well.

But ultimately I think it comes down to the Cajuns, UTA and Georgia Southern. I think the advantage the Cajuns have is they only play the Georgia teams once, all be it in Atlanta and Statesboro. And they get Coastal in Lafayette.

They do have to play Arlington twice, so we need to at least split with them. I think talent wise their is no reason why we should not win the conference, it will come down to making sure we win the games we are supposed to and how we do on the Georgia swing and UTA games.

[talktomewillis]

Troy hasn't been good because they've been without Jordan Varnado. He's supposed to be cleared to play by the start of conference. That will make Troy as dangerous as they were a year ago.

Troy, the Georgia schools, UTA and Coastal have the vast majority of their players returning. Only UTA lost more than one starter. Georgia Southern lost no one.

The league as a whole has underperformed.

[Hatch]

We need a professional production and a professional on the mic.

A few thoughts on the broadcast. Yes there needs to be a producer, as of now there seems to be no one dedicated to managing the broadcast during the game. I remember in previous years during a time out we would hear the P A announcer in the dome and whatever game they were playing, comments on the kiss cam etc. This year it is set up to where they play the university commercial so all that audio is cut off. There is nobody there to think "maybe the people watching at home would like to hear this" in a situation like last night with coach Napier. It has to just be a switch that needs to be flipped or one click, get somebody on it. This could be the same reason we have no score, there is simply no one there to update it.

As far as Dan goes he is pretty good. I remember at one time when you paid for the subscription you also got to watch all the other schools that were run by sidearm sports so I watched a lot of our road games as well, and some of those announcers were terrible. I remember just last year the guy GA state had doing their broadcast that got picked up by ESPN 3 must have only been an NBA fan. Somebody picked up their 5th foul and he said "that's big, one more and he is done" then he went on about why he was going to the bench and how coach should give him a chance to play with 5. Now that is unprofessional.

[Ragin4U]

I like that no one, players or coaches, seemed to get rattled by the slow start.

[Cajunsmike]

I like that no one, players or coaches, seemed to get rattled by the slow start.

Same thing happened at Tech in the late game run by the Bulldogs.

[Frenchie35]

You got to be effing kidding me?!?!? Coach Napier was talking to the crowd at halftime of the game. The online feed was showing it with no audio. The audio comes on as he is walking off the court!!!!!!! UGH!!!
No score, terrible audio, glad this crap is free!

— #CajunNationNews (@CajunDreDog) December 20, 2017

Also during that 10 minute break after the flagrant foul on Southeastern so the refs could check the monitors, the camera was showing the crowd dancing with no music. Not one time did they show the foul, the bench, coaches or floor. Just Dan jawing about the foul committed.