Morning After Pill: Cajuns and Golden Eagles

[zeppelincajun]

And we barely beat two terrible southland teams in uno and mcneese. Basketball is a weird game sometimes.

Seeing that McNeese game sold me on this team not being good enough to compete for a conference title this year. Like you said basketball is weird. Nice to be wrong.

[ZoomZoom]

Thomas is a D2 player at best.

He’s Grayln Warner skinny. Limits his ability to drive and make a consistent difference.

[Turbine]

USM's lowest attended football game for a team that had not been to a bowl in 2 years: 22,128 (average of 25,131)

UL's lowest attended football game for a team coming off 3 of the most successful seasons in program history: 7,888 (average of 14,997 and HIGH of 20,671). ..

Did they have a public season ticket drive?

[Million$Mullet]

I hate to keep beating this drum but I was having a convo yesterday morning with my dad in the hotel lobby and we were discussing how great USM’s support has been for decades. I told him the same thing I said in this post yesterday that I think they put everything into our game and they blew their wad. To back up that claim, I just looked at their website to see how ticket sales were going for the Monroe game tonight. They have practically the whole arena available minus the student section. Now I’m sure they will have some walk ups but the point remains. Their fans respond to playing us. Whether it’s in football basketball or baseball. It’s time that ours do the same. They should be our primary rival in ALL SPORTS going forward.

[Turbine]

I couldn't grasp how UL agreed to TX State being the natural rival in football, especially when Louisiana and USM have been playing for over 100 years.

The only thing that makes sense is that someone at UL likes the travel destination.

[zephyr]

The Bad:
Offensively, it was just a mess in the second half. Spacing was awful. Way too much iso-ball. No movement. We let the USM defense speed us up and we rushed way too many shots. I keep seeing people talking about Fulks being so 'great' last night... Last night was one of the worst games Ive seen him play. He gets too careless with the basketball too often, especially in the second half. Greg Williams had to work too hard to create shots for himself because there was absolutely no ball movement on limited offensive sets. As soon as the pick and roll wasn't there, it was: dribble dribble dribble, jack up a shot or throw up a wild runner in the lane. I'm concerned about the inability of other players to step up and get buckets to support JB.

Defensively, I have no words for that second half. When USM adjusted and obviously were increasing the usage on Haase, what did we do? Play man defense down low with Greg Williams on a freaking PF. When we went to zone, he and Pinkey stepped out and hit open 3s. Did we adjust to their outside shooting? NO, we did not. Garnett got worked, Fulks got bullied by Alvarez (a bench player who ended up with like 18 points), Charles (who I like a lot) was exposed for his slim build and handsy defense and putrid boxing out by everyone not named Lewis or Brown. Still can't figure out why Richards didn't get more playing time. He seemed to be (athletically) a superior match up on Morman and/or Pickney.

The ball not moving was not on Fulks. When we ran motion sets in the first half we had good success. The ball stopped moving because Marlin wanted to rely solely on JB. The issue was that they were playing better defense on him and they wouldn't allow him to kick out to a wing to shoot the 3. Had we kept running our general offense allowing the ball to move more freely, I think we would have gotten others involved better.

This was the best D in the SBC going into this game and you could tell the difference in the two squads in that regard. They were able to double JB and still rotate to shooters making it tough to get open shots. We, on the other hand, at one time triple teamed the post leaving two shooters on the weak side wide open. We over rotated and thankfully they missed the shot but it was open. There was more of that in the second half as Haase started getting on track and they were able to start their run with hitting some open 3's. We had few to no open 3 looks.

[UL_Cajuns]

The ball not moving was not on Fulks. When we ran motion sets in the first half we had good success. The ball stopped moving because Marlin wanted to rely solely on JB. The issue was that they were playing better defense on him and they wouldn't allow him to kick out to a wing to shoot the 3. Had we kept running our general offense allowing the ball to move more freely, I think we would have gotten others involved better.

This was the best D in the SBC going into this game and you could tell the difference in the two squads in that regard. They were able to double JB and still rotate to shooters making it tough to get open shots. We, on the other hand, at one time triple teamed the post leaving two shooters on the weak side wide open. We over rotated and thankfully they missed the shot but it was open. There was more of that in the second half as Haase started getting on track and they were able to start their run with hitting some open 3's. We had few to no open 3 looks.

So its the Big Fish's fault?

[CajunVic]

So its the Big Fish's fault?

. . . or maybe he knows basketball about like he knows baseball . . .

[JayWalker]

Reed Green Coliseum reminds me a lot of Fant-Ewing in Monroe in the way it's constructed. Round (kinda like Blackham except bigger) with the farthest seats away from the court near the center.

A renovation to Blackham. No. You'd have to build an annex because the actual structure is just too small. A 6500 seat newbie is the route to go but we won't see either one in my lifetime.

Best SBC atmosphere since the days of WKU. It was great to broadcast a game like that.

Southern Miss has a long and storied history with their fan base. They can suck at football and still get 25000 in their stadium. Basketball doesn't have as much tradition but you can see what happens when they are good. And, in baseball, they announce the attendance that we announce, but their seats are all full, unlike at Russo.

Now, THAT'S a fan base. One that cares.

[ZoomZoom]

Those who experienced Blackham can tell you when it rains, the east side takes in water. As much as I miss Blackham, it’s a liability and a dump.

AFA the product on the court, rarely does any team run the season or a conference season unblemished. The world isn’t coming to an end.