Well, that’s it.

We found out last week that Louisiana would play Rice in ESPN’s Bracket Buster. Now we just have to sit back and wait for that NCAA Tournament assignment.

No, you’re absolutely right. There is more basketball to be played.

There are those five straight road games coming up at South Alabama, New Orleans, New Mexico State, Rice and North Texas. Then home games against Arkansas State and Arkansas-Little Rock.

And then there’s that pesky Sun Belt Tournament in Bowling Green where allegedly anything can happen.

But the Ragin’ Cajuns just finished polishing off Western Division pretenders North Texas and Denver by 13 and 20 points in games that could have been much more one-sided, moving to 8-1 in Sun Belt play.

Really now, is there anyone out there who thinks another team can challenge UL in the SBC?

Not if they play with the zeal, unity and chemistry they have displayed since Orien Greene and Dwayne Mitchell jelled with the squad.

“I think we were embarrassed that we did not get some wins early,” Evans said. “But I pointed out to the team that we were short-handed. Now we’re playing with a full deck. We can dictate tempo now.”

Evans’ team hit high gear Saturday against Denver with a 25-13 second-half rebounding edge and stifling defensive play, similar to the rout of North Texas on Thursday.

“You’ve got to be a little more aggressive at home,” Evans said. “With Orien, Dwayne and Cedric Williams, we can be more aggressive. Now if you get fatigued, we can sub, so we should play at the optimum level at all times.”

“It’s very fun right now,” said Antoine Landry, “because there’s no pressure on you when you separate yourself like that. It makes the game more fun. It’s one, big happy thing, man.”

“It’s like we’re practicing out there now,” Brad Boyd said. “We put up a lot of lobs and let the crowd enjoy the game.”

“They’re awfully talented,” Denver coach Terry Carroll said of UL. “Now it’s a matter of how bad they want to come out and put it on the floor and compete with those teams in the (NCAA) tournament. I’ll say this — they can take it as far as they want to.”

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Bruce Brown
bbrown@theadvertiser.com