MBB Final: Louisiana 72, Troy 57

[HoustonCajun]

There was no way the Cajuns would continue shooting 50+% and Troy 20%. Hit a mental lapse first part of second half where Troy hit multiple back door cuts. Considering no JB tonight, darn good win.

Seems both the men and women weren’t as focused the second half tonight, final score was as close as Troy got the second half, women yacked it down to 2 for awhile.

The sweet part of the hoax’s win, at Marsha. The drama queen fan base of the SBC be mad. And it’s nice to see GAST stinking it up, even if “Scooter” isn’t there. They never should have moved to a new building, the old place was compact.


http://stats.statbroadcast.com/mobile/?id=428873

Opening 8 minutes or so was beautiful to watch and the team was focused. That is our game. Reminded me of what Texas looked like when we played them. What changed, in my opinion, was when we put Thomas (#2) in the game. We immediately went from a passing and back door cutting offense to an isolation game from him that led to other players standing around doing the same thing. That happens almost every game when he enters and we never seem to be able to regain what we started with. I blame Marlin for allowing that to happen and not making adjustments during the game. It is great to still win and doing so without our best player. This will be our downfall when we play a hot shooting team, because that combined with defensive lapses will cost us. When we play our game, we can be unstoppable, at least in this conference.

[lcitsh]

Here's another factor about home attendance: the Cajuns are now in the top 90 of the NET, which puts them into at large consideration for the NIT. Attendance is one of the things the committee looks at not only to decide if you're in, but what your seeding may be (top 4 in each region hosts). I know the goal is getting the automatic bid to the NCAA (tournament winner) or NIT (regular season winner), but with as much time as there is left in the season, it's not too early to start looking at all the factors to get into post season play.

[CajunEXPRESS]

Opening 8 minutes or so was beautiful to watch and the team was focused. That is our game. Reminded me of what Texas looked like when we played them. What changed, in my opinion, was when we put Thomas (#2) in the game. We immediately went from a passing and back door cutting offense to an isolation game from him that led to other players standing around doing the same thing. That happens almost every game when he enters and we never seem to be able to regain what we started with. I blame Marlin for allowing that to happen and not making adjustments during the game. It is great to still win and doing so without our best player. This will be our downfall when we play a hot shooting team, because that combined with defensive lapses will cost us. When we play our game, we can be unstoppable, at least in this conference.

Marlin has to rest Faultz, especially on Thursday with only one day rest before Saturday games.

[ManAboutTown]

This is a big visual. The Dome was nearly half full according to official attendance numbers. We no longer occupy the upper sections by design, so my basketball facility capacity is around 6000.

When the camera pans the crowd it appears much better.

To a certain degree, you can manipulate things with camera angles. The announced crowd was 3,100+. Let's be kind and say 80% of that is butts in seats. That's ~2,520 people in the actual crowd. I understand that tickets don't get sold for the extreme 300s anymore but the CD didn't shrink when that policy was put in place. The building sits 13,300.

The building looks and feels empty because the building IS empty.

[CajunEXPRESS]

Marlin has to rest Faullksespecially on Thursday with only one day rest before Saturday games.

[zeppelincajun]

This is a big visual. The Dome was nearly half full according to official attendance numbers. We no longer occupy the upper sections by design, so my basketball facility capacity is around 6000.

When the camera pans the crowd it appears much better.

I can’t get my pics to post from my phone at work, but I’ll post tonight. The problem with the half full notion (3,000/6,000) is that there are definitely not 3,000+ actually in seats. I’m still a proponent of reporting sold attendance instead of in person. However, the Dome looks empty on TV because the Dome is largely empty. The problem is only exacerbated by the size of the venue. We can say 6,000 all we want, but the other 5,500 seats are still there and will always make the venue look empty. Even if we fill out the 6,000, we will still never have the atmosphere we could playing in an appropriately sized venue.

[ZoomZoom]

I've seen USM play 3 times and I've now seen Troy play twice.
I have absolutely no idea how Southern Miss beat Miss St and I'm even more befuddled as to how Troy beat FSU.

FSU is just a bad team. 7-14, includes two non D-1 (sound familiar?). Troy can be a bad matchup situation. They have decent size. And the blind squirrel rule is ALWAYS in play in basketball. The hoax winning at Marshall last night…things that are just head scratchers.

And FYI the CD capacity for BB is 11,550. LMU, our largest crowd for BB ever, almost sold it out. 13,500 is maximum under whatever circumstances.

[UL_Cajuns]

The new dome, black seats, and lighting makes it look fuller than it actually is in my opinion and that is ok. 3000 isn’t bad for a mid week basketball game. Let’s get it up to 5000!

[CajunVic]

. . . while the blind squirrel thingy is probably more prevalent in baseball, it surely does happen in basketball also . . . this past week the ticker has pretty much had a blind squirrel result on the board almost every day . . .

[CajunVic]

The new dome, black seats, and lighting makes it look fuller than it actually is in my opinion and that is ok. 3000 isn’t bad for a mid week basketball game. Let’s get it up to 5000!

. . . our recent success along with the return of the chicken may just get us there . . .

[ManAboutTown]

FSU is just a bad team. 7-14, includes two non D-1 (sound familiar?). Troy can be a bad matchup situation. They have decent size. And the blind squirrel rule is ALWAYS in play in basketball. The hoax winning at Marshall last night…things that are just head scratchers.

And FYI the CD capacity for BB is 11,550. LMU, our largest crowd for BB ever, almost sold it out. 13,500 is maximum under whatever circumstances.

Fair point. Our largest crowd for football ever was almost 40k (allegedly) against Southern.
And when we renovate the stadium, they're shrinking capacity to 30k. One crowd does not a venue make.

[CajunEXPRESS]

I can’t get my pics to post from my phone at work, but I’ll post tonight. The problem with the half full notion (3,000/6,000) is that there are definitely not 3,000+ actually in seats. I’m still a proponent of reporting sold attendance instead of in person. However, the Dome looks empty on TV because the Dome is largely empty. The problem is only exacerbated by the size of the venue. We can say 6,000 all we want, but the other 5,500 seats are still there and will always make the venue look empty. Even if we fill out the 6,000, we will still never have the atmosphere we could playing in an appropriately sized venue.

It’s always important to recall and understand that when the CD was conceived, and built it was appropriately sized. In that era bigger was better, Kentucky, Tennessee, LSU, Carrier Dome. Then along came ESPN to both create additional fans, and eventually depress actual attendance. Basketball is the ultimate TV sport.