Ragin' Cajuns eye .500 mark

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LAKE CHARLES - Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns have a chance to square their season record at .500 today when they meet the McNeese State Cowboys at 7 p.m. at the Lake Charles Civic Center.

Coach Robert Lee's squad bludgeoned visiting Georgia State 67-50 on Monday, holding the Panthers to 7-of-25 shooting in the second half to improve to 4-5 and avenge an earlier defeat in Atlanta.

But they'll have to continue improving against McNeese, which is also 4-5 after an 83-54 road loss at Arkansas-Little Rock on Monday.

UL held off the Cowboys 76-70 last season in the Cajundome, and two years ago McNeese got the best of the visiting Cajuns 76-74 on the MSU campus.

McNeese also had a narrow 82-79 loss this year to the same LSU squad which clipped the Cajuns 83-69.

"All I have to do is tell them 82-79," Lee said. "If that doesn't get our attention, then I'll remind them that the last time we were in Lake Charles they beat us.

"Good teams have to find a way to win on the road and we have to do that, starting Thursday."

The Cajuns have been up-and-down, with three of their victories coming at home, another over Louisiana Tech played at LSU and all of their losses on the road.

Told Monday night that Georgia State was now 0-6 away from Atlanta, UL's Tiras Wade said, "Oh, they're like us, huh?"

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Bruce Brown
bbrown@theadvertiser.com

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McNeese hosting rival Louisiana-Lafayette tonight in Civic Center game

The McNeese State Cowboys will host Louisiana-Lafayette's Ragin' Cajuns tonight (Thursday, Dec. 23) in a rare home appearance at the Lake Charles Civic Center.

Both teams enter the game with 4-5 records. Game time is set for 7 p.m. Thursday 's meeting will be the 81st installment in the Cajuns-Cowboys series which dates back to the 1951-52 season.

Louisiana-Lafayette is coming off a 67-50 win over Georgia State Monday night at the Cajundome that snapped a brief two-game losing streak. In that game, the Cajuns put forth one of their best defensive efforts of the season in limiting Georgia State to 33 percent shooting.

In the contest prior to that Louisiana-Lafayette just missed pulling off an upset at No. 12-ranked North Carolina State falling 78-72. The Cajuns were only down two with eight seconds remaining.

The Cajuns will be looking to snap a five-game losing streak in road games. Since defeating Louisiana Tech 84-63 in the season opener in Baton Rouge, the Cajuns have lost their last five road contests.

McNeese State is still searching for its first win over a Division I program. All four of the Cowboys wins this season have come against non-DI programs - Louisiana College, Spring Hill College, Jarvis Christian and William Carey College.

The Cowboys are returning home after a two-game road trip which resulted in losses at Louisiana Tech (63-81) and Arkansas-Little Rock (68-78).

Louisiana-Lafayette leads the all-time series with McNeese State 50-30. The series began Dec.14,1951 in Lafayette with the Cowboys posting a 68-64 win and continued every season until the 1985-86 season when a three-year hiatus occurred before resuming in the 1988-89 season.

MSU won the first eight games and 16 of the first 17 through 1959. Then-USL would take command of the series winning 25 of the following 29 meetings from 1959-73 to take a 26-20 lead. Since the 1980-81 season,the Cajuns have won 21 of the last 25 meetings.

The two teams did not meet from the 1992-93 through 1997-98 seasons after resuming play in 1988-89.

The series resumed on Nov. 30,1998 at the Cajundome and the two schools have met once each year since then.

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