The Book: Lady Cajuns 2004-05 Basketball Season

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LOUISIANA La. - Louisiana’s Lady Cajuns improved to 4-1 following a 67-42 victory over Centenary College on Wednesday night. Stingy defense and a second half scoring explosion paced the victory.

The 4-1 start has only been bested once in school history, when the 1983-84 squad started 6-0, finishing 22-6. Four clubs have started 4-1, with the last edition coming in the 2000-01 season.

UL allowed only eight second half field goals, including just two field goals in the final 12 minutes.

After making six of their final eight shots to close the first half, the Cajuns made five of their first seven to start the second half. The sharp shooting helped Louisiana extend its three-point halftime advantage to eight, 39-31, with 14:21 to play.

From there, UL would make only five baskets in the next seven minutes. Fortunately, four of the five were three-pointers and strong Cajuns defense allowed only two baskets over the same span.

Bernette Tolston connected on her second triple of the half, before Onna Charles dropped in a pair of three’s, giving her three in a six-minute span. Melissa Bratton’s three-pointer gave the Cajuns a 53-35 lead at the seven minute mark.

A free throw by Centenary’s Laura Kizyte was the only thing to slow the Cajuns.

UL tacked on seven more unanswered points to take a commanding 60-36 lead. Bratton nailed another three-pointer before Domonique Thomas and Anna Petrakova added baskets.

Freshman Sonora Edwards led the Cajuns with 13 points and nine rebounds. Nine other players figured in the scoring. Thomas led UL with six assists.

Neither team could score early, as the Cajuns trailed 4-2 after shooting 1-for-7 in the game’s opening four minutes.

Despite shooting a miserable 4-for-16, the Cajuns trailed by just five, 15-10, with nine minutes remaining in the first half.

The Cajuns slowly started a run, with the help of stingy defense. UL outscored CC 13-3 over the next six minutes starting with a three-pointer by Petrakova. Edwards, Sherita Anderson, Alexandra Kotta and Tiffany Washington all contributed to the scoring. When Petrakova finished the spurt, the Cajuns held a 23-18 lead with 3:03 remaining.

LOUISIANA SI

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LOUISIANA La. — As it turns out, you can go home again, and again.

Franklin’s Tiffany Washington returned to south Louisiana from Oklahoma State when her family needed her, and was a big reason Louisiana’s Ragin’ Cajun women’s basketball team posted a solid 13-15 record last season.

Listed as a senior, Washington trailed only Sun Belt Conference Player of the Year Anna Petrakova in both scoring (10.4 points per game) and rebounds (9.0) for the Cajuns.

But instead of that being her swan song, Washington petitioned the NCAA to grant her an extra year of eligibility and she got her wish in time to join the Cajuns for their season-opening road trip to Colorado and Alaska.

It was hard to tell who was more elated — Washington or UL coach J. Kelley Hall — and the smiles haven’t faded yet.

Washington will join the Cajun women in taking on Savannah State at 4:45 p.m. today at the Cajundome.

“It was tough waiting,” Washington said. “I had to write a letter and wait to see what they said. “It’s a good feeling. I’ll graduate in May, and I needed something to occupy my time.”

Washington’s role remains the same. She rebounds, plays defense and lofts a timely 3-pointer now and again, in addition to counseling younger post players on the team.

“It’s pretty much the same,” Washington said. “I was able to stay in shape. As long as I did it on my own time, that was fine.”

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Bruce Brown
bbrown@theadvertiser.com

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Women avenge ’03 defeat

LOUISIANA La. — Bernette Tolston had a point to prove. So did her Louisiana teammates, and the result was the Ragin’ Cajun women’s basketball team’s highest point total in nearly 15 years.

The Cajun women continued a four-game homestand in impressive style Saturday, jumping to a 31-point lead in the first half, leading by as many as 54 in the second half and finishing with a 95-47 win over outmanned Savannah State.

The scoring total was the squad’s most ever in the Cajundome and the most since coach J. Kelley Hall took over the program.

It’s hard to imagine that the Cajuns (5-1) lost to the Lady Tigers last year — 49-45 in overtime.

“We went there last year and it wasn’t pretty,” said Tolston. “We really concentrated on this game after what happened last year.”

Tolston finished with 21 points, hitting 5-of-9 shots from three-point range, and keyed a first-half stretch in which the Cajuns hit five out of six outside the arc and built a 32-8 lead 11 minutes into the game.

Even that margin might have been greater considering that the hosts hit only two of their first 10 shots and missed their first five tries from the three-point line. Tolston missed her first two treys — and then hit five of her last seven.

“At the start, I thought it was going to be another long game,” she said. “But this team keeps each other up. It turned out better than I expected.”

During the time that Hall had at least three of his starters on the floor, the Cajuns outscored the Lady Tigers (2-4) by a 78-18 margin.

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LOUISIANA La. — It’s hard to imagine how a 95-47 victory could be more one-sided, but Louisiana’s Ragin’ Cajun women could have posted even more impressive numbers last Saturday against Savannah State at the Cajundome.

That wasn’t the point, though. Moving to 5-1 on the year was the point, and coach J. Kelley Hall’s squad did that with ease.

“The kids were looking forward to that game because they know they didn’t play well against Savannah State last year,” said Hall, whose squad somehow fell to the same foe 49-45 last season. “We only hit 3-of-26 3-pointers in that game.

“It’s also about postseason. We want to be in postseason and the kids understand that we don’t want to lose to a team with an RPI rating over 160.”

College basketball’s RPI rating was a recurring theme during Hall’s Monday press conference, something new to women’s basketball at UL.

“We’re going to keep talking about it, too,” Hall said. “We plan to be in a tournament at the end of the year (either the NCAA or the NIT), and we realize we have to keep playing well in order to do that.

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Bruce Brown
bbrown@theadvertiser.com

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LOUISIANA La. — The University of Louisiana is in final exams this week, and that’s taxing enough for most college students.

UL’s Ragin’ Cajun men’s and women’s basketball squads are just like those other students, with the added burden of practice and games this week.

Coach Robert Lee’s Cajun men will take a 3-3 record into Saturday’s demanding road game at No. 2-ranked Kansas, while the 5-1 Cajun women are polishing their game for a Saturday home date with Nicholls State.

“We’re practicing around the exam schedule,” Lee said. “Our main focus right now is preparinig for exams. I don’t have any doubt that anyone is in danger of not being eligible, but that is our focus.”

“I try to mix it up,” said women’s coach J. Kelley Hall, whose squad practiced at 10 a.m. on Monday and works out at 11 a.m. today. “I try to keep it fun.

“You can’t really have a 2 1/2-hour, hard practice this week. Their minds are on something else that, in all honesty, is more important at this time of the year.”

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Bruce Brown
bbrown@theadvertiser.com

[DaddyCajun]

Student Athletes, must first perform in the classroom to get on the playing field. Coach Lee looks like he is going to instill this into his progam/players just like Robe, Steff, Bustle, Hall, and a few other coaches at UL!!

DaddyCajun!!

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LOUISIANA La. — J. Kelley Hall has a long memory. So do some of his players.

In Hall’s first game as Louisiana’s Ragin’ Cajuns women’s basketball coach, Nicholls State ruined the occasion with a 59-57 decision.

UL reversed that decision last year in Thibodaux with a 57-38 victory, but the Cajuns still recall the ending of that earlier encounter with the Lady Colonels.

“Two years ago, they banked in a 3-pointer from halfcourt at the buzzer to beat us by two,” Hall said. “The kids remember that.”

Nicholls and UL meet again at 7 p.m. at Earl K. Long Gym, with the two teams coming off two distinctly different performances.

Nicholls went 13 minutes without scoring a point in Thursday’s 52-47 road loss at Samford, which dropped the Colonels to 2-3 on the season.

Hall’s Cajuns, who took the week off to concentrate on final exams, are 5-1 after crushing Savannah State 95-47 last Saturday in the Cajundome.

Louisiana is averaging 71 points per game after that Savannah State score, and that could be a bad sign for UL opponents.

“If we can just get in the 60’s, with our style, we’re going to have a chance to win,” Hall said. “We’re always going to play defense, and we try to hold teams in the 50’s.”

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Bruce Brown
bbrown@theadvertiser.com

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LOUISIANA La. — Louisiana’s Ragin’ Cajun freshman Alicia McDaniel was a life saver Saturday night, stealing the ball from Nicholls State’s Cristin Burdette to seal a nerve-wracking 57-56 victory at Earl K. Long Gym.

Coach J. Kelley Hall’s squad struggled with the upstart Lady Colonels (2-4) for most of the night, shooting poorly and getting into foul problems on a day when a pair of Cajuns were still finishing up semester final exams, but they survived to improve to 6-1.

“Take it and move on,” said Hall, whose team will host Prairie View A&M on Monday night. “I’ve never yet had a team play well coming out of finals. I don’t know why.”

A short baseline jumper by Anna Petrakova on an inbounds play under the basket put the Cajuns ahead 57-51 with 1:54 to play, but it was far from over.

Burdette hit a free throw at 1:33, Nkechi Nwachukwu followed with a jumper at 1:00 and an Ashley Blanche turnover was followed by a Katherine Plummer jumper as NSU got within 57-56 with :17 left.

Then, when Blanche missed a free throw with 12 seconds remaining, Nicholls had a chance to win.

NSU had nipped UL 59-57 on a buzzer-beating, banked-in 3-pointer in Hall’s first game as Cajun coach in 2002, and it looked shaky once again.

But Hall inserted McDaniel on defense, and she came up with the ball to save the day.

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Bruce Brown
bbrown@theadvertiser.com

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Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns are boldly going where no UL women's basketball team has gone before.

Their 85-24 home victory over Prairie View A&M on Monday set a new standard for margin of victory and moved the Cajuns to 7-1 on the year for the first time in school history.

The 1983-84 Cajuns of Ross Cook started out 6-0, but then lost a pair of games and finished with a school-record 22-6 mark.

Taking another step in this season's fast start will be a challenge, as coach J. Kelley Hall's squad faces SEC member Arkansas at 7 p.m. today at the Alltel Arena in Little Rock.

"I've been watching tapes on them, and they're very good," said Hall, whose lone setback was a 67-47 loss to No. 2 Stanford. "They've got a post game, and they've got three kids that can (all) line up at point guard.

"They're quick, they shoot good and they've got size inside. They're very talented."

The Lady'Backs, who improved to 7-1 with a 59-53 win at Memphis on Dec. 7, have put up some staggering defensive numbers after eight games with 153 steals (a nation-leading 19.1 per game) and 252 opponents' turnovers (31.5 per game).

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Bruce Brown
bbrown@theadvertiser.com

[NewsCopy]

LOUISIANA La. - Louisiana's Ragin' Cajun women put the game out of reach early on Saturday, then coasted in with a 90-72 victory over Sam Houston State at Earl K. Long Gym.

It was just the kind of game the Cajuns needed between road tests against Arkansas last Thursday and at Nebraska on Monday night, a chance to sharpen their skills.

"We shot the ball so well in the first half that we just buried them," said UL coach J. Kelley Hall, who saw all five starters score in double figures on the day.

"When you hit 10-of-20 3-pointers in a half, you take the other team out of it."

Senior Bernette Tolston led that early shooting spree, hitting 5-of-9 treys to spark the rout and tie fellow senior Tiffany Washington's 15 points at the break.

"Sometimes I go by my first attempt as to whether I'm in a rhythm or not," said Tolston, who nailed 5-of-7 treys in Thursday's 82-68 loss at Arkansas. "If I don't make that first one, then the next attempt.

"I just try to keep it as positive as I can."

UL (now 8-2) was ahead 53-29 at halftime, and it was clear it would take a major reversal for the Bearkats (2-5) to get back in the game.

"We came out in the first half and played as a team," said Washington, who had a career-high 22 points and pulled down 11 rebounds. "The first five minutes of the second half were very important, because we consider the score to be 0-0, like it was the beginning of the game."

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Bruce Brown
bbrown@theadvertiser.com

[El Sidonio]

All I can say from what I saw is that them girls can shoot the 3's!!!! Except for a couple of lapses in concentration, and a few bad passes, I was/continue to be impressed by what I saw/see/whatever.... Geaux Lady Cajuns Basketball!

--God Bless--

[1stTake]

There is a thread on Delphi about this. "Coach Hall is absolutely amazing."