I just might have to check out the Ladies.
1stTake on Louisiana
Ragin' Cajuns Rock
I just might have to check out the Ladies.
Ragin Cajuns of Louisiana
Geaux Cajuns
I am impressed. They also played very strong against South Alabama. Maybe, just maybe the Ragin' and Lady Cajuns will go dancing.
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Lady Cajuns try to get 3rd straight Monkey off back.
Louisiana hopes to beat third straight team for the first time ever
LOUISIANA La. — With each step Louisiana’s Lady Cajuns take, the more confident they become.
How could they help it?
In the last week, Coach J. Kelley Hall’s Cajuns have back-to-back victories over two teams — Florida International and Western Kentucky — that the school had never beaten before.
“First, we had to teach them how not to lose,” Hall said. “And now, once you teach them how to win, it’s contagious.”
The Cajuns’ latest victory, Thursday’s 80-72 conquest of defending Sun Belt Conference champion WKU, will be followed at 2 p.m. today by a visit from Middle Tennessee, the team WKU beat in the SBC finals a year ago.
It’s the latest challenge for a team that’s getting used to slaying dragons of their past.
“We’re just not going to give up, even when we’re down,” said senior guard Sharee Glenn, who had 15 points on Thursday.
The Cajuns (10-7, 4-2) shot 52.8 percent against the Lady Toppers, including 56.5 percent in the second half, and won despite being harassed into 23 turnovers by the defensive-minded visitors.
They won even after WKU overcame a 51-43 second-half deficit and ran to a 57-52 lead.
They won because they’re starting to believe they can, and more importantly, that they should.
“Down the stretch,” Hall said, “the kids just hung in there and played tough. And, they hit the big baskets when they had to.”
None was bigger than the 3-pointer from Morgan Mayon, beating a shot clock buzzer, to extend a UL lead from 72-68 to 75-68 with 1:01 to play.
Mayon saw 15 minutes of action largely because starting point guard Ashley Blanche continues to have back spasms, and Mayon eventually dealt with WKU’s swarming defense.
“There’s not a lot of pressure on me because Ashley believes in me,” Mayon said. “She talks to me and helps me do what I have to do.”
The Cajun upset sent up warning flags in the Sun Belt, certainly visible in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Coach Stephany Smith’s Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders are coming off a narrow 52-51 escape at New Mexico State on Thursday, and they now know the stop in Lafayette is no longer the get-well spot in the league.
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Bruce Brown
bbrown@theadvertiser.com
What happened with the Girls today?
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They had a letdown but don't underestimate this team.Originally posted by RaginCager
What happened with the Girls today?
They are turning a HUGE corner
Geaux Cajuns
. Perimeter game vaults Cajun women
LOUISIANA La. – Teams who face the University of Louisiana Lady Cajuns basketball squad have two defensive options.
Squads can defend the perimeter and leave their postmen with one-on-one assignments inside. Or they can sag in on Sun Belt leading scorer and rebounder Anna Petrakova, and leave themselves vulnerable on the perimeter.
North Texas chose the latter here Thursday night, and the Lady Cajun perimeter players took advantage.
In all, the ALdy Cajuns hit five-of-six three-point baskets in one streak, finished the game with eight treys, and hung on down the stretch for a key 53-50 Sun Belt victory over the Lady Eagles.
“It’s frustrating for Anna,” said Cajun head coach J. Kelley Hall, “but that’s how teams are going to play us. They’re going to make someone else beat them.”
Thursday, the someone else was junior Bernette Tolston, who banged in five treys on the way to a team-high 15 points. Two of those came in the game’s first 10 minutes when University ofLouisiana (11-8, 5-3) got out to a quick early lead, and the last two came in a four-minute stretch midway through the final half as part of a 10-0 Cajun run that built a 48-40 lead.
“That’s the reason we won,” said Petrakova of the three-point shots. “Teams are focused on me and they underestimate everybody else. Even after we were making all the threes, they kept sagging in.”
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Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@lafayette.gannett.com
. Lady Cajuns require road wins
To achieve goals, Cajun women must win on the road.
Louisiana's Lady Cajuns basketball squad pretty much held service in the first half of the Sun Belt Conference season.
Five wins in seven home games has the surprising Ragin’ Cajuns tied for first in the league’s West Division with a 5-3 mark, along with an 11-8 overall record that is one of only two twin-digit win totals since 1990.
The Cajuns haven’t won five league games since 1998.
Now comes the hard part — winning on the road. And it’s a long and winding road that leads to the Sun Belt’s postseason tournament.
The road begins today at 4 p.m. when the Cajuns, winners of eight of 11 games since mid-December, travel to meet Denver (10-10, 3-5 Sun Belt). Between today and the end of February, coach J. Kelley Hall’s squad will play seven of its eight games away from home.
“We know it’s going to be tough,” Hall said Thursday after his squad survived in a 53-50 win over North Texas. “We’ve felt all along like it’s going to take eight conference wins to get into the tournament, and that means we have to win at least twice on the road.”
That might be a tough task in a parity-dominated league. Except for 6-2 Arkansas State, every other team in the league has between three and seven conference losses, and only two have less than three wins.
Only the top four teams in each division advance to the league’s postseason meet at Western Kentucky in March, so the Cajuns have to finish ahead of at least two West rivals to earn a slot.
That might not be easy with the unbalanced road schedule, and with league teams changing their defensive game plans to slow down postman Anna Petrakova. The 6-foot-3 junior leads the Sun Belt in scoring (19.1) and rebounding (10.3), but was limited to 12 points and six rebounds, mostly in the second half, in Thursday’s win.
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Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@lafayette.gannett.com
. LAdy Cajuns need reversal
LOUISIANA La. — University of Louisiana coach J. Kelley Hall sent his Lady Cajuns on the road for 10 straight games to start the 2003-2004 season.
Now it’s time for that challenge to pay dividends.
Hall’s Cajuns visit South Alabama today in Mobile in a crucial Sun Belt Conference Western Division contest, hoping to reverse negative impressions left by last Saturday’s 73-49 defeat at Denver.
That loss began a season-finishing streak that puts the Lady Cajuns on the road for seven of their last eight games.
USA is coming off a loss of its own. The Jaguars fell 57-54 at Arkansas State on Monday night to drop into a three-way tie atop the division at 5-4 with UL and North Texas.
Denver and New Mexico State are just a game behind at 4-5 and even New Orleans (3-6) remains in the chase for spots in the March 6-9 Sun Belt Tournament at Western Kentucky.
If the tournament began today, Hall’s squad would be the No. 5 seed, but any such position remains precarious until the Cajuns can overcome a history of Sun Belt road woes.
South Alabama, which won 14 straight games earlier this season, edged the Cajuns 57-54 in the Cajundome on Jan. 15 to snap a four-game UL streak.
As usual, Cajun hopes rest with junior center Anna Petrakova, who paces the Sun Belt Conference in scoring (19.1 points per game), rebounds (10.2) and blocked shots (2.55). She had 23 points, eight rebounds and two blocked shots in the first meeting with USA.
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Bruce Brown
bbrown@theadvertiser.com
. Cajuns invade rival UNO for key twinbill
NEW ORLEANS — For one UL Lafayette basketball team, today’s contest against New Orleans could be for a share of a Sun Belt Conference title.
For the other, it could mean survival.
Both the Ragin’ Cajun men and women take on their Privateer counterparts today in televised contests at UNO’s Lakefront Arena, with the women’s squad playing at 3:35 p.m. and the men following at 6:05 p.m.
The women’s game airs live over the ESPN FullCourt package and over COX Sports (cable channel 27 in Lafayette). The men’s game is also live to ESPN FullCourt subscribers, but will be tape-delayed at 11 p.m. over COX Sports.
The Cajun men (14-5, 9-1) carry an eight-game win streak into their second meeting of the year with the Privateers (12-11, 6-4), who stand tied for second place behind UL Lafayette in the Sun Belt’s West Division. A UNO win would pull the Privateers within two games of the lead with four games to play.
However, a Cajun win, coupled with a Western Kentucky home victory over North Texas (also 6-4), would lock up no worse than a share of the West crown by the end of Valentine’s Day — with more than two weeks left in the regular season.
“Our guys have stepped up,” said Cajun head coach Jessie Evans. “They’ve answered every challenge, and teams have played hard against them. South Alabama played very hard, so give them a lot of credit.”
USA played the Cajuns closer Thursday night than any team has in almost a month, with UL Lafayette winning 79-73 in Mobile after trailing by nine points with 6:54 left. Orien Greene hit four three-pointers in the final seven minutes including three in a row to spark the comeback and give the Cajuns their fifth straight Sun Belt road win.
The Cajun squad hit 11 three-pointers and forced 23 UNO turnovers in an 85-64 Cajundome win on Jan. 17, a victory that began the current eight-game win streak that is the second-longest ever under Evans.
That game also marked Greene’s first appearance in a UL Lafayette uniform, a 28-minute effort in which he had seven points, three rebounds, three assists and three steals. Since then, he’s scored in double figures in five of six games including his career-high 28 on Thursday at USA.
“It’s good to come on the road and win,” said Greene, who hit 11-of-15 shots and also had four assists and four steals. “We still haven’t played a complete game on the road yet.”
The Privateers have apparently righted their ship thanks to a homecourt boost, and did it in widely-varying style. UNO, which plays six of its last seven league games at Lakefront Arena, topped Arkansas-Little Rock 100-95 in two overtimes last Saturday, and then put on the defensive clamps in a 51-37 win over New Mexico State Thursday night.
The 37 points allowed is the lowest given up by a UNO club in six seasons.
“That was one of the best defensive efforts a team of mine has ever had,” said UNO coach Monte Towe after the visiting Aggies shot less than 28 percent from the floor and returning Sun Belt Player of the Year James Moore had only 10 points. “Victor Brown did a good job on defense against Moore. We were trapping down on him with the big guys and our weak side did a great job getting in front of people that were open.”
Lady Cajuns vs. UNO
The Cajun women are still looking for their first Sun Belt road win, and that’s important since Louisiana (11-10, 5-5) plays four of its last five league games away from home beginning today against the Privateers (9-13, 4-6).
“We haven’t shot the ball consistently,” said Lady Cajun coach J. Kelley Hall, “and on Thursday it wasn’t just from the perimeter. We didn’t shoot it well inside, outside, anywhere.”
The rest of the story
Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@lafayette.gannett.com
. LAdy Cajuns finish strong aginst UNO
Louisiana records key road victory to stay alive in Sun Belt West race.
NEW ORLEANS — Twice this season, the LAdy Cajuns of Louisina have endured disappointing three-point losses to South Alabama, and both times they have responded with double-digit victories over New Orleans.
The Cajuns came back from a 23-21 halftime deficit for Saturday’s 61-51 win at Lakefront Arena, improving to 12-10 on the season and 6-5 in the Sun Belt Conference’s Western Division.
“I think that proves that, even if we go down, we’re going to come back up,” said junior post Anna Petrakova, whose 25 points and seven rebounds led the way. “We’re not giving up.
“The loss to South Alabama really hurt our feelings. UNO just happens to be the team we got back on.”
UL’s earlier 57-54 home loss to USA was followed two nights later by a 68-49 rout of UNO, and USA rallied in the second half to beat the Cajuns 52-49 last Thursday in Mobile.
“The kids realize they can play well on the road,” coach J. Kelley Hall said. “We did lead South Alabama for 39 minutes, and I think that gave the team a lot of confidence.”
The Cajuns quickly reversed Saturday’s halftime deficit with six straight points after intermission, before the Privateers (8-14, 4-7) put together a surge of their own and led 31-29 on two Monique Taylor free throws with 16:48 to play.
Petrakova then responded with a drive and a free throw to put her team ahead to stay at 32-31.
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Bruce Brown
bbrown@theadvertiser.com
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