Jessie Evans’ club to battle Middle Tennessee, not hosts, in semifinals

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — Jessie Evans isn’t focused on the Sun Belt Conference finals.

Not yet, anyway.

“Three games in four days? You don’t worry about that,” said Evans, whose No. 1-seeded Louisiana hammered South Alabama 84-58 in their Saturday quarterfinal opener.

“You just concern yourself with the next night. It’s always what you do right now.

“We know that the ‘now’ is what’s important. You live in the moment. As long as you do that, you have a chance.”

The Cajuns split with South Alabama during the regular season, but on Saturday they left no doubt about the outcome.

“We’re working on the same things we’ve worked on all year, improving as a team,” Evans said. “If we do that, we’ll be fine, regardless of the opponent.”

That’s a good attitude, because the Cajuns won’t be facing who they thought they’d meet in today’s 5:30 p.m. semifinal.

The Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders, who lost to host Western Kentucky in last year’s finals, stunned the Hilltoppers 76-62 on Sunday night.

The Cajuns led the Sun Belt in scoring and yet can play suffocating defense, so they seem to be able to play whatever style is needed. They’ll just have to do so against a different foe to advance.

“Against South Alabama, we stuck with our game plan and played good defense,” Cajun guard Orien Greene said. “We hadn’t played that well against South Alabama during the season, and we wanted to stop what they were trying to do.

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Bruce Brown
bbrown@theadvertiser.com