Lee did tough job well
Faithful coach deserves special place in Cajun hoops lore
Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns had it all this week at the Sun Belt Conference Basketball Tournament.
Their three-game stretch in Denton, Texas, outscoring three opponents by a combined 44 points, was the best sustained effort of a 20-10 season.
Their focus and poise were exemplified by suffering just eight turnovers in Tuesday night's 88-69 championship win over a Denver team that had beaten them twice in the regular season.
The veteran-laden starting five made sure the Cajuns repeated as Sun Belt champions and earned a second straight trip to the NCAA Tournament, the first time UL has achieved that since 1981-82 and 1982-83.
And when Dwayne Mitchell executed a running thunder dunk for the final Cajun points of the tournament in the last half-minute of action, Louisiana's domination was complete.
There was no doubt they were the champions again.
It's been quite a climb for a school that passed over 8-year assistant Robert Lee and hired Glynn Cyprien last year to replace Jessie Evans, only to fire Cyprien two months later for transcript inequities and select Lee after all.
Through a sometimes vexing maiden voyage, Lee repeated his "three games in Denton" mantra while getting his team to adapt to a new staff, and the end results are impressive.
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