First-half Outburst Carries Cajuns Past Loyola
Louisiana wins seventh straight home opener, evens record at 1-1
LOUISIANA La. - Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns men's basketball team, charged by a 20-point outburst in the final six minutes of the first half, blew open an eight-point contest en route to a 89-57 win over Loyola-New Orleans here Monday night at the Cajundome in the regular season home opener.
With the win UL (1-1) evened its season record heading into a two-week fall semester break and won its seventh straight home opener. The Cajuns also extended their non-conference home winning streak to eight games.
Sparked by three consecutive three-point baskets, one from Antoine Landry and two straight from Brad Boyd, the Cajuns stretched a 24-16 margin at the 6:11 mark of the first half into a 33-16 advantage with 3:54 remaining in the half, prompting a timeout from the Wolfpack.
Baskets from Laurie Bridges, Brian Hamilton and then Boyd once more stretched the lead to 20 at 39-19 - the exact margin the Cajuns brought into the locker room ahead 44-24.
Boyd, last season's leading scorer who was held to six points in the season opener at Georgia Tech, bounced back with 21 points off the bench on 7-of-13 shooting making four 3-point baskets. Head coach Jessie Evans cited discipline reasons for not starting Boyd.
Laurie Bridges and Chris Cameron each reached double-digits scoring as well tacking on 17 and 15 respectively. Junior transfer Brian Hamilton led UL Lafayette with six rebounds.
Loyola received a game-high 14 points from Daniel Schmidt and got a game-high nine rebounds from Zach Tyson.
The Cajuns defense forced the Wolfpack into 30 turnovers and limited Loyola to just 19 first-half shots.
UL ended the game shooting 47 percent (35-for-73), rebounding from a 27-percent outing at Georgia Tech last Tuesday.
Loyola struggled from the floor making just 34 percent of its shots (18-for-52). As a result, the Wolfpack dropped its second straight game heading into Wednesday night's matchup at McNeese State.
Loyola (3-4) was the main culprit of its own undoing in the six-minute stretch of the opening frame that the Cajuns began to pull away. The Wolfpack suffered 19 first-half turnovers often times having sloppy passes lead to unforced takeaways.
The second half began much as the first did with the Cajuns sprinting out to a 13-2 run come the first media timeout at the 15:29 mark to open up a 57-26 advantage and the outcome was never in doubt.
UL's lead grew to as many as 38 points at the 10:34 mark of the second half when Brad Boyd tipped in a missed layup by Landry for a 71-33 lead.
The visitors hung tough early on in the game taking a 6-4 lead at the 17:58 mark on a trey from Jonathan Hernandez.
A Cameron layup at the 16:44 put the Cajuns back on top 7-6. On the ensuing possession Bridges picked off a pass and broke free for an uncontested layup to put UL on top 9-6.
James Bunn pulled the Wolfpack back to even with a three-pointer on the next possession.
Hamilton made a three-point basket of his own at the 15:10 mark to give the Cajuns the lead again at 12-9 - one which hey would not surrender the rest of the way.
UL played its second straight contest without five players, including last season's leading rebounder Michael Southall, all of whom are ineligible for the fall semester and were forced to sit out the contest.
Louisiana, off for the next two weeks in conjunction with fall semester finals, returns to action on Tuesday, Dec. 9 in a 7 p.m. (CT) game at Dayton.
LOUISIANA SI
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