The Book: Lady Cajuns 2005-06 basketball season

[NewsCopy]

New Iberia Senior High product Onna Charles did more than her fair share in helping the Louisiana Ragin' Cajun women's basketball team complete its road sweep of the Sun Belt Conference teams in Alabama on Saturday night with a convincing 81-69 win over Troy. Charles led the Cajuns offensively with a career-high 35 points - the 12th best scoring performance in school history - and added seven rebounds. Charles poured in 24 points in the first half, and then scored 11 points in the second half to help prevent any comeback attempts by Troy. The victory improved the Cajuns to 13-3 overall and 3-1 in Sun Belt play. Louisiana led by 16 points at the half and never saw its lead dip below double figures in the win. The rest of the story

[El Sidonio]

Now before y'all get your underpants all twisted in a knot over the title of my post, gimme a second to explain. I like to consider myself as a quite loyal UL fan, not quite as loyal as all the Turbines and DaddyCajuns out there, but loyal. If I wasn't, I'd have jumped on some other bandwagon years back.


My point is that I don't necessarily believe in leaving a team when it's down, but look at our situation here. We have a men's team that is as crappy as it can be. Good players, but the coaching doesn't seem to be that good. On the other hand, we have a women's team that is way more hardworking, and has recently been setting records, and they keep getting better and playing excellent. The coaching for the women's team is outstanding.


I propose that all of you out there who are unhappy with the men's program right now, maybe take some time off from the men's games and go support a program that deserves it, women's basketball. You might find yourself impressed and buying a new set of season tickets. Imagine if at EK Long we had only half the crowd we have for men's games, it'd be TEN times louder. And we'd be sending the right message, that we're tired of mediocrity and don't support losing as a habit.

I'm not saying permanently take a break from men's basketball, but just give a chance and go watch and support the women.

Just my 2 cents

God Bless
Geaux Cajuns

[JMV JustMyView]

The women's team could use some more support and make Earl K Long one of the toughest place to play...

[Clutch0364]

Until I see the effort our of our starters that I saw from Alphonso Williams, Rhett Hebert, and Adam James I will be attending the women's game. Coach Hall has the women playing with a lot of effort and that is one thing I have not seen out of the men all year. It seems like very few on this cajun mens team care and want to be out there so until the start to play hard and actually get a little toughness, then I will be at the women's games watchign a good product on the court.

[derf]

or how about being a true UL fan and going to both. How insulting is this whole situation. You have to be kidding. This is why UL has a history of being looked at as one of thoes schools that just can't get over the hump. YOu know I used to have season tickets to LSU years ago and even when they were pretty bad the fans still attended. Now that I am here in Lafayette home of the Ragin Cajuns I attend every event that I can. Sid I know deep down inside you are hurt. So am I. I haven't missed a basketball game in Lafayette( or a tournament) in 8 yrs, and it is hard to see OUR TEAM playing this way but to suggest that we, for lack of a better term, boycott OUR TEAM for a lackluster season is just plain wrong. This is not New Orleans. WE should and WILL support OUR TEAM no matter what.

[El Sidonio]

Derf,

I understand where you're coming from, which is why i said in my original post that we shouldn't permanently boycott the men's games. BUT, it is sad when the men's team, which is defining the essence of crappy basketball play, gets 6 times the attendance of the women's team which is defining the essence of solid excellent basketball play. Again, we should support our team no matter what, but what does it say to the outside world, and to everyone else when we give more support to a very bad men's team over an excellent women's team?

Just my 3 cents

God Bless
Geaux Cajuns

p.s.- besides, if we always support the men's team with huge crowds, etc.. even when they don't deserve it, then what incentive does that give them to do better? There's a logical reason why attendance goes down when the W-L ratio does.

[derf]

if you think that pedople not showing up to their games is gonna make them play better, then you have a skewed veiw of support. Look, there are many things which keep the fans from comming out in droves for the women's games. The biggest is that the Earl K. is one of the most fan-unfriendly places for veiwing college sports. I go anyway, but the point is that people can go to the dome and feel like they are at a college sporting event, while long feels like a small highschool gym. Secondly, if you do some research on it you'll find that the support gap between men's and women's sports in college is not a rare occurance. I agree its sad but not uncommon. The great thing that this university does is it doesn't schedule Men's and Women's home games on the same day that often. And, when it does happen they both play at the dome. This is so everyone can come to both games.
And I don't hear you complaining that our really good baseball team consistantly outdraws our GREAT softball team.
Give it a rest Sid, you don't abandon your team because they are struggling. PERIOD. No matter how long the time period.

that's my dime

[BrockMeaux]

if you think that pedople not showing up to their games is gonna make them play better, then you have a skewed veiw of support. Look, there are many things which keep the fans from comming out in droves for the women's games. The biggest is that the Earl K. is one of the most fan-unfriendly places for veiwing college sports. I go anyway, but the point is that people can go to the dome and feel like they are at a college sporting event, while long feels like a small highschool gym. Secondly, if you do some research on it you'll find that the support gap between men's and women's sports in college is not a rare occurance. I agree its sad but not uncommon. The great thing that this university does is it doesn't schedule Men's and Women's home games on the same day that often. And, when it does happen they both play at the dome. This is so everyone can come to both games.
And I don't hear you complaining that our really good baseball team

[El Sidonio]

if you think that pedople not showing up to their games is gonna make them play better, then you have a skewed veiw of support. Look, there are many things which keep the fans from comming out in droves for the women's games. The biggest is that the Earl K. is one of the most fan-unfriendly places for veiwing college sports. I go anyway, but the point is that people can go to the dome and feel like they are at a college sporting event, while long feels like a small highschool gym. Secondly, if you do some research on it you'll find that the support gap between men's and women's sports in college is not a rare occurance. I agree its sad but not uncommon. The great thing that this university does is it doesn't schedule Men's and Women's home games on the same day that often. And, when it does happen they both play at the dome. This is so everyone can come to both games.
And I don't hear you complaining that our really good baseball team consistantly outdraws our GREAT softball team.
Give it a rest Sid, you don't abandon your team because they are struggling. PERIOD. No matter how long the time period.

that's my dime

I'd give it a rest if I didn't care, but I do, so I can't. Again, I support the notion that permanently abandoning the team is not good, but temporarily it is, as hard as that is for you to understand. While this may not be true at all times and all places, I really feel like our women deserve the support better than our men. And since people in the town and university find it hard to support multiple programs, I say, support the women's team, they deserve it.

Also, I never said that not going to men's games would make them play better. That what you ASSumed. What I said was that the way they're playing right now doesn't deserve the level of support it's getting. Again, you never answered my question about what it says when we support a HORRIBLE men's team more than an EXCELLENT women's team that really deserves it. I still stand by my point that if the men's team/staff sees that we are willing to support less than excellence, they'll be better off than if they see a full crowd even when they play crappy.

As far as the atmosphere at Long versus the Cajundome, I agree to an extent. The Cajundome is a more professional place to play. But until we get crowds of greater than 7k at the Dome, Blackham and Long will always be better places to play. They are more intimidating to opponents because of the closeness of the fans, and the magnification of noise levels. In reference to the women's team, would you rather their crowds of 500 look and sound really good in Long, or look pathetic and insulting at the huge Dome?

In regards to your comment about baseball, versus softball, that's a whole different story. What I mean is that, both baseball and softball are good (softball is consistently "better") but they BOTH play hard and usually have solid fundamentals. That is the difference. While the baseball team is usually not at as high a level of success as the softball team, they work hard to earn our support. Men's basketball right now (not sure for how long) is absolutely horrible. It'd deserve more support if the record was horrible but they actually played like they knew how to play, or if they played with solid fundamentals. But, the way they're playing right now deserves no support save for the fact that we love them because they're a part of our university.

To make another analogy, when a university is promoting itself to a prospective student, you never heard them say "well this program is mediocre, but we love our university so we support it anyways and you should too!". While support of the whole university is always there, they usually try and emphasize the better respected higher ranked programs, and for good reason.

In the end, I could go on all day, and some of you might agree with me and some of you might not. Either way, I think I've said enough. What I hope happens is that our men's team gets back to where it needs to be.

God Bless
Geaux Cajuns

[NewsCopy]

Since few lives are ever lived free of speed bumps - or speed lumps, as they are known in the Saints streets area - success usually has as much to do with how you react to adversity as how you behave when life is easy. The Louisiana Ragin' Cajun women got embarrassed at home by North Texas on Jan. 7, not just bidding farewell to a 22-game home win streak but landing with a 70-47 thud. The road ahead looked rough - five straight games away from Earl K. Long Gym, starting with South Alabama in Mobile, and seven of eight on the road in Sun Belt Conference play. They could have dwelled on the loss to UNT. They could have folded and let the unreasonable league slate get to them. They could have lost for a fourth straight time under J. Kelley Hall in Mobile, where something always seems to happen to snatch a win away from UL. But that's not what happened. The Cajuns refused to lose at USA last Thursday, emerging with a 60-56 victory that re-energized their campaign. Then - and just as importantly - Hall's squad climbed all over Troy University for an 81-69 triumph sparked by a career-high 35 points from New Iberia's Onna Charles. Suddenly, the Cajuns are 13-3 overall and 3-1 in Sun Belt play, right back in the thick of the chase for the West Division title they won a year ago. The rest of the story Bruce Brown bbrown@theadvertiser.com