No one said this was easy, but no one said it was this hard, either.

Some college basketball fans are beginning to ask themselves, just how difficult is it to come up with a schedule? Judging by at least four Sun Belt Conference schools, the answer would seem to be, very difficult indeed.

As of last Thursday, neither Louisiana, Western Kentucky, South Alabama nor Florida had announced their 2003-04 basketball schedules. Ordinarily, this wouldn't be a problem ... in July. But here it is, the third week of September with hoops a mere two months away, and fans of these schools have little or no idea as to who'll be zooming whom when the action starts.

Maybe there's no hurry. After all, we just caught football fever a couple of weeks ago, and Cajun fans are more concerned with scoring touchdowns than making free throws. But, jeez, basketball practice begins in 30 days; you'd think by now, we'd have a general idea of what's on the menu.

Actually, we're not even sure who's been fitted for a uniform yet. The Cajuns lost a freshman signee when he failed to qualify academically, while a highly recruited transfer developed visa problems and headed back to the Virgin Islands. Meanwhile, a returning letterman has already been declared academically ineligible for the fall semester and, according to a source within the program, center Michael Southall wasn't even nominated by the school for Pre-Season All-SBC honors. I think that's a clue.

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Don Allen / Sports and Movies
Posted on September 17, 2003