Final: G4 Louisiana 74 Texas State 73

[moorecajun]

Both teams have won five straight and are in first place in the SBC West Division. Did not see women's game so can't comment much. As far as men's game is concerned, we literally stole one. Give credit to Butts for not being so excited to miss the shot after the steal. Many players would do so. He must like playing against the Bobcats since his 6 threes beat them in the first conference game of the year. It was a very questionable call on the Russell bucket taken away. Same with a bucket taken away by Awkuba a few minutes earlier. I don't know if anyone heard Coach Morris in post game. Said ref who called charge had told him earlier they had missed some calls when Bobcats had their hands on Cedric when he drove. Said he had us. He almost did get us did he not. Coach Morris also dedicated victory to his mother who is battling cancer. Appropriate such a victory happens on coaches vs cancer weekend. Finally, both Russell and Butts were hot from outside most of game. That was not all luck. If you noticed they had several makes on catch and shoot plays. They received pass in a position allowing clean looks. That allowed them to square their feet/body and have wrist good wrist follow through on the release. Coach Marlin has been saying we shoot the ball better in practice than in games and eventually that would translate. It won't continue at the same percentage as today but a few will fall with continued good execution and proper technique on the shot. It it does Awkuba will start to score inside once more. Still need to clean up the turnovers. Rebounding had been a strength until this weekend. Need to shore that up once more.

Absolutely agree with all your points!

[Hatch]

Both teams have won five straight and are in first place in the SBC West Division. Did not see women's game so can't comment much. As far as men's game is concerned, we literally stole one. Give credit to Butts for not being so excited to miss the shot after the steal. Many players would do so. He must like playing against the Bobcats since his 6 threes beat them in the first conference game of the year. It was a very questionable call on the Russell bucket taken away. Same with a bucket taken away by Awkuba a few minutes earlier. I don't know if anyone heard Coach Morris in post game. Said ref who called charge had told him earlier they had missed some calls when Bobcats had their hands on Cedric when he drove. Said he had us. He almost did get us did he not. Coach Morris also dedicated victory to his mother who is battling cancer. Appropriate such a victory happens on coaches vs cancer weekend. Finally, both Russell and Butts were hot from outside most of game. That was not all luck. If you noticed they had several makes on catch and shoot plays. They received pass in a position allowing clean looks. That allowed them to square their feet/body and have wrist good wrist follow through on the release. Coach Marlin has been saying we shoot the ball better in practice than in games and eventually that would translate. It won't continue at the same percentage as today but a few will fall with continued good execution and proper technique on the shot. It it does Awkuba will start to score inside once more. Still need to clean up the turnovers. Rebounding had been a strength until this weekend. Need to shore that up once more.

I really appreciate you posting tidbits of the postgame interview as I rarely get to watch games live and try to stay away from the radio and social media stuff until I can watch the archive.

[JayWalker]

I thought the foul call on Akwuba was bogus and said so. I didn't get a good enough look on the block/charge on Cedric so I didn't comment on it.

[Cajunsmike]

I thought the foul call on Akwuba was bogus and said so. I didn't get a good enough look on the block/charge on Cedric so I didn't comment on it.

Coaches film review concluded it was an incorrect call on the Russell late basket. Like most coaches after every film review, they believe there were several poor calls that went against them and few that went their way. Now the fact that Cajuns did not shoot ONE free throw in the second half gives validity to their analysis. I don't recall not shooting a free throw in the second half and still winning. Historic day yesterday.

[Cajunsmike]

Absolutely agree with all your points!

Need to make one correction on a post from yesterday. Women's basketball has won six straight, not five. Forgot they played three games in Arkansas last weekend. Good time to be a Cajun these days isn't it?

[Grantvb]

Jay I don’t think the link will work since it’s from your computer’s hard drive.

[BeauCajun]

Coaches film review concluded it was an incorrect call on the Russell late basket. Like most coaches after every film review, they believe there were several poor calls that went against them and few that went their way. Now the fact that Cajuns did not shoot ONE free throw in the second half gives validity to their analysis. I don't recall not shooting a free throw in the second half and still winning. Historic day yesterday.

I noticed with about a minute left in the game that TXST only had 4 fouls in the half. Crazy.

[LaCajunsFan]

Jay I don’t think the link will work since it’s from your computer’s hard drive.

Yeah, I think your correct. That seems to be a link to a file on his computer. I tried anyway and nothing comes up.

[CajunNation]

Both teams have won five straight and are in first place in the SBC West Division. Did not see women's game so can't comment much. As far as men's game is concerned, we literally stole one. Give credit to Butts for not being so excited to miss the shot after the steal. Many players would do so. He must like playing against the Bobcats since his 6 threes beat them in the first conference game of the year. It was a very questionable call on the Russell bucket taken away. Same with a bucket taken away by Awkuba a few minutes earlier. I don't know if anyone heard Coach Morris in post game. Said ref who called charge had told him earlier they had missed some calls when Bobcats had their hands on Cedric when he drove. Said he had us. He almost did get us did he not. Coach Morris also dedicated victory to his mother who is battling cancer. Appropriate such a victory happens on coaches vs cancer weekend. Finally, both Russell and Butts were hot from outside most of game. That was not all luck. If you noticed they had several makes on catch and shoot plays. They received pass in a position allowing clean looks. That allowed them to square their feet/body and have wrist good wrist follow through on the release. Coach Marlin has been saying we shoot the ball better in practice than in games and eventually that would translate. It won't continue at the same percentage as today but a few will fall with continued good execution and proper technique on the shot. It it does Awkuba will start to score inside once more. Still need to clean up the turnovers. Rebounding had been a strength until this weekend. Need to shore that up once more.

Really appreciate your info and analysis Mike.

[ZoomZoom]

This is amazing...can’t get photo to upload of ESPN metric, we had a 4.1% chance of winning with 3 seconds to go.

As a point of comparison Texas Tech had an 8% probability of beating Alice Shoe with 1:14 to go.

[zephyr]

My takeaway from this game and a couple of things that I noticed were rebounding as mentioned earlier but one thing I saw that was really interesting to me was 3pt shooting. I've been very critical of Marlin and his want to shoot a ton of perimeter shots. We've gone games where we shoot 25+ 3's but are shooting 30% or less as a team doing so. Saturday, we shot only 17 3's even though we shot over 60%. We were efficient which we couldn't say very much this season. I hope we stick to a similar recipe and don't get the swollen head and start putting up 30 3"s per game.

Also, I know people mentioned rebounding and why we didn't hit the offensive boards as hard as usual and it showed. We had only 6 to their 14. What sticks out to me as a slight concern though, is that that we gave up 14 offensive boards to Txst even though we are a better rebounding team. Not sure what the reason for that was since you can't blame it on not sending everybody to the boards like you can on the offensive side. Great win nonetheless.

[Turbine]

Usually, the higher percentage you shoot, the lower your offensive rebounds will be.

[zephyr]

Usually, the higher percentage you shoot, the lower your offensive rebounds will be.

True, which is why I said I wasn't concerned about only having 6 ORB, I was more concerned about giving up 14 to TxSt.

[Turbine]

True, which is why I said I wasn't concerned about only having 6 ORB, I was more concerned about giving up 14 to TxSt.

In rereading, I see where you made the distinction.

[RaginDave]

I really don't want to face Texas State again, I know we are 3 of 4 vs them, but they really give us fits, specifically a couple of their players:

Mason Harell, Isiah Small and Caleb Asbury. These three guys averaged 41 points per game (Harrell-15, Small-15 and Asbury-11) per game in 4 games. TSU averaged 70 points per game vs us, so these 3 players made up 57% of their offensive production. The other issue is that in our 3 wins we averaged winning by 3 points (6, 2 and 1), in their victory over us they beat us by 12. Granted we did not have Dou Gueye for the 1st and 2nd game, but nonetheless, those three players give us fits.