Tony Robichaux doesn't care if the NCAA Baseball Committee sends his team to New Orleans, even in a regional that includes a Tulane team ranked No. 1 in the country by one poll.

He said he's not concerned about a trip to Baton Rouge and a regional hosted by LSU, a site that's been tough on visiting teams - and where there was friction between the hosts and Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns the last time the two were paired.

He'd even take Austin, Texas, Oxford, Miss., or Waco, Texas.

What he doesn't want is Fullerton, Calif., Corvallis, Ore., or Long Beach ... or, heaven forbid, a return trip to Miami, where the Cajuns spent the last week.

"The last thing we want to do is get back on an airplane," Robichaux said Sunday after the 16 sites for NCAA baseball regional play were announced. "I hope wherever they send us, we don't have to get back on a plane again. We've been doing that for three weeks now, and we've had enough."

The Cajuns returned Sunday afternoon from the Sun Belt Conference Championships hosted by Florida International in Miami, where they were eliminated late Friday night. South Alabama won the league tournament Saturday afternoon with a 9-2 win over Middle Tennessee and claimed the league's automatic berth.

Part of the reason for Robichaux's aversion to more flight time may be a turbulence-filled flight from Atlanta to New Orleans on Sunday, but it's more because of the physical and mental status of a Cajun squad that's lost almost as many games in May (eight) as it had in the first three months of the season (nine).

Trips to New Mexico State and Western Kentucky prior to the Miami journey wore down even a senior-laden squad.

"We're a tired team," Robichaux said. "As long as we can bus somewhere we'll be happy."

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Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@theadvertiser.com