ORLANDO, FLA. -- When he gets around to showing his team the tape of Friday's NCAA Tournament game against North Carolina State, Louisiana coach Jessie Evans no doubt will point out the missed opportunities for the Ragin' Cajuns.
And then he'll probably do it again just to make sure he didn't miss any.
Fourteenth-seeded UL had a chance to pull one of those memorable first-round upsets, but fell short, 61-52, at the T.D. Waterhouse Centre.
"Maybe it just wasn't our afternoon," Evans said. "We play them again, and things might have been different."
Instead of moving on to a second-round game Sunday against Vanderbilt, a 71-58 winner against Western Michigan, UL's season is done.
The Ragin' Cajuns (20-9) never trailed 15th-ranked and third-seeded North Carolina State by more than 11 points Friday. And yet, after trailing 27-23 at halftime despite going the last 9:15 without a field goal, they could get no closer than six during the final 20 minutes.
"We got to rushing our shots, where if maybe we had made a few more early on, that wouldn't have been the case," Evans said. "Then as hard as we were playing defense, they made some unbelievable baskets. We weren't too far away, but in a game like this, every possession is magnified."
That was most evident when UL had the ball trailing 53-46 with 1:21 left.
A basket would have made it a two-possession game. Instead, senior guard Brad Boyd, who had just come into the game after sitting out much of the second half, threw the ball out of bounds 13 seconds later.
The Wolfpack converted on the other end on an eight-foot jumper by Ilian Evtimov with 55 seconds left, and the game essentially was over.
"It's always frustrating when you turn the ball over," Boyd said. "There's not much else I can say."
Boyd's miscue wasn't the only crucial moment of the second half -- just the last.
With UL trailing 47-40, the Ragin' Cajuns forced the Wolfpack (21-9) into the final seconds of the shot clock, only to see freshman guard Engin Atsur throw in one from an improbable over-his-head angle.
At the other end, following a turnover by Brian Hamilton, the Ragin' Cajuns went to full-court pressure as the Wolfpack tried to inbound the ball under the UL basket, forcing a time out.
But after the time out and before the ball was inbounded, Orien Greene fouled Julius Hodge, and Hodge then made two free throws to make it an 11-point game.
ULL guard Antoine Landry, who prepped at De La Salle, made a 3-pointer to get the deficit back down to eight, and again the Ragin' Cajuns forced North Carolina State deep into the shot clock.
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Time Picayune
Ted Lewis
tlewis@timespicayune.com
(504) 826-3405.