Bobby Paschal: Louisiana Athletics Hall of Fame Class of 2023
It meant little in terms of conference championships and berths in the NCAA and NIT tournaments, but it remains a defining moment in the long and storied history of UL basketball.
When coach Bobby Paschal's unheralded Ragin' Cajun team traveled to Anchorage, Alaska, in November of 1981 and rolled past Georgetown, Washington State and Marquette in three games that weren't close, it sent shock waves through college basketball.
"We left Alaska feeling pretty good," said Cajun assistant coach Dennis Donaldson. "I think Coach Paschal, and all of us, thought we had a chance to do something special after that."
Those three wins over nationally-ranked or nationally-known programs were the precursor to UL reaching postseason play four straight seasons – two NCAA and two NIT berths – and reestablished the Cajun program's national prominence. It also helped wipe away the stigma of the program's NCAA-mandated shutdown almost a decade earlier.
Paschal, who came to UL as an assistant coach when the Cajuns resurrected the team for the 1975-76 season, was the lead architect of that return to power. His second Cajun team had reached the quarterfinals of the NIT in 1980, but it was the three-year run beginning at the Shootout – a combined 69-25 record that included a 43-6 record at Blackham Coliseum – that resurrected the soul of the Cajun program.
Paschal eventually became the second-winningest coach in UL history, more than enough to ensure his induction into the UL Athletic Hall of Fame on Friday, Oct. 20, as part of the university’s Homecoming celebration, one day before UL meets Sun Belt rival Georgia State in the annual Homecoming game. He will be inducted along with seven other former athletes, coaches and staff members in a 7:30 p.m. ceremony at Warehouse 535 in Lafayette.
Before leaving in 1986 to return to the state of Florida, where he began his coaching career, Paschal’s teams compiled a 153-85 record and a .643 winning percentage, a mark second only to Beryl Shipley in UL coaching annals. That record is more noteworthy since the Cajuns left the Southland Conference and played as an independent against a national-caliber schedule over his last four seasons.
His teams made five postseason appearances during those years and never lost a first-round game in three NIT appearances, making the quarterfinals in that 1980 season and reaching the NIT Final Four in 1984.
But for those who followed Cajun basketball at the time, the Great Alaska Shootout remains a burned-in memory. That tournament originated four years earlier in 1978, and the three previous winners – North Carolina State, Kentucky and North Carolina – were elite blue-blood programs. So was Georgetown, UL’s first-round opponent one day after Thanksgiving.
At the time, coaches routinely went to watch upcoming opponents prior to their games. The Hoyas were ranked fifth nationally in both wire service polls, and two respected magazines made them their preseason No. 1 pick thanks in part to highly-touted freshman center Patrick Ewing.
“I remember going there and they asked me where I was from,” said Cajun assistant coach Bobby Bowman, a long-time Paschal friend and associate who was tasked with scouting Georgetown. “They asked why I came all the way up there to scout them.”
Whether that slight had any effect or not, the Cajuns were a force for the next three days. The 70-61 win over the Hoyas – one in which UL postman Dan Gay outplayed Ewing and in which point guard Johnny Collins controlled the game – was followed by a 13-point win over Washington State and a stunning 81-64 dismantling of Marquette.
“Johnny just wore them out,” Donaldson said. “Going up against guys like Pat Ewing, Sleepy Floyd, Doc Rivers, those guys had a lot of notoriety. It gave our guys a lot of confidence.”
“Preparing and planning that trip, and then to be able to go there and win that tournament, that was special,” Bowman said. “It was the beginning of a great year.”
UL went 16-1 at home in a 24-8 season and won the Southland title in its final year in that league on the way to the NCAA Mideast Regional. The Cajuns also reached the NCAA’s the following year – impressively as an independent at-large selection – and followed that with the NIT Final Four trip in 1984 where they fell to Notre Dame in the semifinals.
Those successes were in part due to a series of outstanding players, but the atmosphere around the program that Paschal fostered played a significant role.
“His personality, what he stood for, how he cared about everybody, all of that was so important to him,” Bowman said. “He was highly organized along with having outstanding basketball knowledge, and his work ethic was exceptional. But he also made everybody feel at ease. He made his staff feel like we were a big part of it and was always supportive of everything we did.
“He had a philosophy that nobody’s going to outwork us, but we’re also going to work together. He was always a family person, and all our families were close.”
“He could relate to the players and he changed our game to fit the players we had,” Donaldson said. “We had a cohesive staff … we may not have agreed all the time, but he was always ready to try new things and we were always on the same page when it was time to play.”
Paschal was ranked in the top 30 nationally in career winning percentage when he left UL and never had a losing season in his eight years. His teams won more than 20 games four times against increasingly difficult schedules, including a 3-1 record in the prestigious Sugar Bowl Classic highlighted by wins over Florida and Kansas in 1983.
He also led South Florida to two NCAA and two NIT appearances and a Sun Belt Conference title, and was named to USF’s Hall of Fame in 2013. Ten years later, he’ll now add the UL Athletic Hall of Fame to that resume.
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Re: Athletics, Men's Basketball: Bobby Paschal: Louisiana Athletics Hall of Fame Class of 2023
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