Lee era begins tonight against La. Tech

[NewsCopy]

BATON ROUGE — What better way to tip off the Robert Lee Era of Louisiana Ragin’ Cajun basketball than with the oldest rival on the UL books?

Lee’s first regular-season game as the Cajun leader is a 5:30 p.m. contest today against Louisiana Tech in LSU’s 14,164-seat Pete Maravich Assembly Center in the Louisiana Classic tournament.

Host LSU and its old rival, Tulane, square off in tonight’s second game at 8 p.m.

The two victors play at 3 p.m. Sunday, following a 12:30 p.m. matchup of the losers, with all four contests televised in Louisiana on Cox Sports.

“It’s finally here,” Lee said. “It’s time to play for real.”

“First of all,” Tech coach Keith Richard said, “I have to say thanks to (LSU coach) John Brady for putting this together. He didn’t have to do this.

“It’s a real interesting weekend, a great way to start the season — and that’s win or lose. Fans of all four teams can come and watch them play.”

The whole weekend has an air of familiarity to it.

Cajun assistant Rennie Bailey was a Tech standout in the 1980’s on Bulldog teams that were powered by Karl Malone. Bailey helped lead the Bulldogs to a 26-7 finish and the Southland Conference title in 1984.

UL’s Spencer Ford and Chris Davis are experiencing a homecoming of sorts. Ford played at nearby Scotlandville High, while Davis prepped at Istrouma.

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Bruce Brown
bbrown@theadvertiser.com

[NewsCopy]

His first game -- and victory -- as a college head basketball coach was in the books for about 20 minutes when someone asked Robert Lee if he had a preference of opponent for his second game.

"I think everybody knows who we want to play," Lee said with a chuckle after pausing to consider his answer following the University of Louisiana at Lafayette's 84-63 knockout of Louisiana Tech.

As Lee spoke Friday night inside LSU's Pete Maravich Assembly Center, Tulane and LSU warmed up before their marquee first-round matchup. The Tigers popped Tulane 83-58 ... and will play UL-Lafayette at 3 p.m. Sunday for the championship of the LSU Louisiana Classic.

Tiras Wade, a transfer who led UL-Lafayette with 20 points in his first game as a Ragin' Cajun, said there's no better way to start a season than in a tournament of what he called the state's premier programs.

"We came to prove that we're the best team in Louisiana," Wade said. "It could get us a lot of fan support across Louisiana -- get some more fans on our backs, jump on the bandwagon on the way to the Sweet 16."

Whether the Cajuns are that good remains to be seen, but they seemed to make a big impression on Louisiana Tech coach Keith Richard.

"It's probably terrible to say right off the bat,'' Richard said, "but I thought they were way more talented than we were.''

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By CARL DUBOIS
cdubois@theadvocate.com
Advocate sportswriter

[oddtbone]

Can someone please explain how 5-point plays can exist? I do not see the logic in allowing a shot AND calling a foul away from the ball on the same play. Maybe i am missing something, but i fail to see how both can happen on the SAME play.

[Jason]

wierd call, I feel the same way...

[Turbine]

I haven't seen enough of them to know much about the properness of all versions of the 5-point play. My first gut feeling was if a non flagrant foul happened after the shot, away from the ball, it should be a no call. But I have no clue.

I have seen personal and tech fouls result in 5 point plays.

It also seems to me the ref who will call the foul away from the shot wasn't following the offense and is the same ref that will call charging when all he saw was an ever moving Darrell Mitchell do the flop.

Maybe we can fid out about the play if we read Mike Krzyzewski's book.

[UL_Cajuns]

yea, the refs were pretty horrible on both sides.

But I give it to the LSU big guys, they just beat us in side. Cameron did absolutely nothing, he looked like a big blob in the way.

[shof]

That's why losing the big recruit to OSU was such a disappointment. Finding quality big men are a real challenge, especially for smaller conference schools.
Would have been (speculation of course) a nice addition to this program. Maybe we can get lucky and find a David Robinson type -- small coming out of HS who grows into a dominant center. Bet you can't tell I'm a Spurs homer :<))

[RaginFan2]

"yea, the refs were pretty horrible on both sides."

I agree. I saw some blown calls that favored the Cajuns, too. But not nearly as many as those which favored the Tigers. Sometimes it wasn't so much a blown call as much as a call that went against the Cajuns and a similar action by the Tigers on the other end went UNCALLED. That was most aggravating. I don't agree that Cameron was horrible, he did make a few nice plays. But he was very much outplayed by whoever he was matched up against. Bass really ate his lunch on a move inside when he went completely around Cameron and dunked.

[NewsCopy]

LOUISIANA La. — Today’s Louisiana-Rice matchup is the modern-day equivalent of a shotgun marriage.

The two teams were matched up last spring as part of ESPN’s Bracket Buster Saturday, a made-for-television concept where teams from different conferences face each other to show their wares and hopefully impress national college basketball fans – and, more importantly, the NCAA selection committee.

The teams met on Feb. 21 with Rice taking an 81-76 home-court win, and as part of the ESPN arrangement the home team for Bracket Buster returns a trip to the visiting team in November or December of the following season.

New UL coach Robert Lee said this week that he’d like to play the Owls every season as part of the Ragin’ Cajuns’ non-conference schedule.

“I’d hope we can play every year,” Lee said. “It’s only a three-hour drive for both of us. One of my goals was for us to have a regionalized non-conference schedule, and that’s something we’re really shooting for.”

Rice coach Willis Wilson wasn’t quite as committed to a continuing series between the teams, but did say that the Owls also like the regional concept and will be looking for more non-league games next year with its switch from the Western Athletic Conference to Conference USA.

“With the new conference, we’re going to go from playing 18 conference games to 14,” he said, “so we’re going to have to really look at our scheduling. It’s always nice to play people in your region where there’s a familiarity to your fans, and travel there (to Lafayette) is very amenable.”

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Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@lafayette.gannett.com

[CajunCharlie]

Am I mistakenly reading between the lines of the Rice coach's quote? The message I am getting is that he believes it is below Rice to play us, that the only reason they are even coming to the Cajun Dome is because they are forced to do so. His quote, in my interpertation, smacks of elitism.

I wish Robert Lee good luck in his efforts to schedule on a regular basis, but, alas, I feel he has as much of chance doing that as he would with lsu-br.

[NCAA or BUST]

Originally posted by cajuncharlie
The message I am getting is that he believes it is below Rice to play us, that the only reason they are even coming to the Cajun Dome is because they are forced to do so. His quote, in my interpertation, smacks of elitism.

UL will win and this will be the last time we see Rice for a while.

[CajunCharlie]

I believe that win or lose, it will be the last time we see Rice,EVER!!