The Book: Lady Cajuns 2005-06 basketball season

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The matchup of the teams with the best records in the league figured to be a dramatic one, but the visitors took the Cajuns out of it quickly with a 32-15 first half. UNT finished that deciding period with a 14-2 scoring surge before intermission. APPRECIATING ASHLEY: Senior point guard Ashley Blanche played the most minutes of any Cajun in Saturday's stunning blowout loss to North Texas. Blanche returned from her grandmother's funeral in Houston to give her team 37 minutes, scoring 14 points and providing the one 3-point basket UL could manage. "It's not an easy thing to do, to play a game after you've buried someone you love," coach J. Kelley Hall said. "It hurt her to lose this game." When Blanche headed to the bench in the final moments, she buried her face in a towel and allowed herself the tears she had held inside. RARE HUMILIATION: Saturday's defeat was the worst for a Kelley Hall-coached Cajun team in three years. On Jan. 9, 2003, South Alabama whipped UL 62-37 in Lafayette, the last time a Hall team had scored fewer at home than the 47 it had against North Texas. NOW IT GETS TOUGHER: The Cajuns are on the road for their next five games and seven of their next eight. "That's why this game was so important to us," coach J. Kelly Hall said. "It's a tough stretch now." GAME NO. 100 A DOWNER: Satursday was the 100th game at UL for coach J. Kelley Hall, who is 54-46 in his fourth year here. The rest of the story Bruce Brown bbrown@theadvertiser.com

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Saturday night at Earl K. Long Gym was strikingly similar to last Thursday night. The only problem was, the same Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns women's squad that dismantled visiting Denver 76-50 in its Sun Belt Conference opener was throttled in similar fashion by the North Texas Mean Green by an embarrassing 70-47 count. In a showdown of the teams with the best records in the league, North Texas controlled the contest from the start en route to a 12-2 record and a 2-0 start in league action. Louisiana saw its 22-game home win streak broken, falling to 11-3, 1-1 before 542 fans. "We need to understand that the target is on us," said coach J. Kelley Hall, whose Cajuns won the Sun Belt Western Division last season and reached the SBC Tournament finals. "People want to beat you. "We did not play like champions and did not deserve to win the game. They pretty much did to us what we did to Denver on Thursday night." The Cajuns hit just 19-of-62 shots and were out-rebounded 49-34. They didn't hit a 3-pointer until senior Ashley Blanche connected with 5:35 remaining in the game, and were 1-of-15 on treys. The rest of the story Bruce Brown bbrown@theadvertiser.com

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DENVER - It was billed as a battle of the big men, but Denver's perimeter shooting ended up being more of a factor here Saturday night. The Pioneers put together two solid 3-point shooting streaks, one midway through the first half and one that lasted most of the second half, and followed those runs to a 75-63 win over the Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns in their Sun Belt Conference meeting Saturday at Magness Arena. The Cajuns had streaks of their own, but they weren't good ones. UL had a five-minute stretch in the first half where it managed only one free throw, and the host Pioneers opened an 18-11 lead. Then, in the second half, the Cajuns saw a five-point deficit grow to a 17-point hole when DU went on a 12-0 run and UL went scoreless from the 8:18 mark to the 3:23 mark. Denver (8-6, 2-0 Sun Belt) grabbed the early lead in the league's West Division courtesy of the win and New Orleans' upset 72-69 win at North Texas. The cold-shooting Cajuns (4-9, 0-2), meanwhile, remained winless in league play and fell to 0-2 in the Sun Belt for the first time since the 1994-95 season. Denver's Yemi Nicholson, the returning Sun Belt Player of the Year, had his seventh "double-double" of the season by intermission and finished with 18 points and 16 rebounds. But it was DU's 3-point shooting, more than anything else, that had more to do with the Pioneers taking their third straight regular-season win over UL in as many games. Denver missed its first six trey opportunities and then hit 11 of its next 20 outside the arc. The rest of the story

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Was kryptonite green in the Superman comics? It's hard to remember. At any rate, the North Texas Mean Green packed some kryptonite when UNT visited the Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns on Saturday at Earl K. Long Gym. Coach J. Kelley Hall's squad had won 22 straight games at home, and only senior point guard Ashley Blanche had been around for the last time the Cajuns fell short in front of their own fans. So when the Mean Green halted that streak, it was a disappointment. But the way they did it, pummeling UL 70-47, was shocking. "I think we thought we couldn't lose here," Hall said. "They did think they were bullet-proof. But, you also have to take care of your business and continue to get better, and we did not do that tonight. "I told the players that that's how far away we are from first place, and that's a long ways away. It's very disappointing. The game was between the two best teams in the Sun Belt, and we were not ready." The rest of the story Bruce Brown bbrown@theadvertiser.com

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Several years ago, the Louisiana Ragin' Cajun women's basketball coach J. Kelley Hall had the chance to speak with legendary coach Al McGuire. And, like any young coach, Hall welcomed the opportunity to seek words of wisdom. McGuire's name came up on Monday, when Hall was reminded that his team did not score in the final 4:08 in the first half of last Saturday's 70-47 home loss to North Texas. "Al told me that, in a given year, you'll play 28 games," Hall began, "and out of those 28 games there will be two nights when, I don't care how many timeouts you call or how many adjustments you make, it's not going to happen for you. "He said you could yell, scream, get technical fouls, and that's not going to change the outcome. We tried everything Saturday night, and it did not make a difference." The Cajuns experienced a jarring change between last Thursday's 76-50 win over Denver in their Sun Belt opener and Saturday's 23-point loss to UNT that snapped their 22-game home win streak. "We're probably not as good as we looked against Denver, and probably not as bad as we looked against North Texas," Hall said. The rest of the story Bruce Brown bbrown@theadvertiser.com

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Losing to North Texas last Saturday, and watching a 22-game home win streak go up in smoke, was bad enough. Now the Louisiana Ragin' Cajun women's basketball team has to regroup away from E.K. Long Gym, playing the next five games on the road and seven of the next eight in hostile arenas. If the Cajuns (11-3 overall, 1-1 in Sun Belt Conference play) are going to get back in the hunt, seniors Ashley Blanche and Sherita Anderson are going to have vital roles. "Ashley and I have been here," Anderson said, "so we have a bigger responsibility. We need to pull the team together. He (coach J. Kelley Hall) shouldn't have to do that. "We're very capable of doing it. We've done it in the past." Blanche, whose freshman season of 2002-2003 corresponded with Hall's arrival at the school, noted the dose of reality dealt to the Cajuns in Saturday's 70-47 defeat. "I don't think there's extra pressure on us," she said. "I feel we had our bad game against North Texas. A lot of the players didn't know what it felt like to be beat like that. We had been beating everybody else by 20. "We just have to work extra hard now. We have to step up and do what we have to do." The rest of the story Bruce Brown bbrown@theadvertiser.com

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MOBILE, Ala. - Without question, the North Texas Mean Green fired the shot heard 'round the Sun Belt Conference with last Saturday's 70-47 victory over the Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns that snapped UL's 22-game home win streak. UNT grabbed the West Division lead at 2-0 and continued its school-record start at 12-2 overall. But the South Alabama Jaguars fired some shots of their own on Saturday as coach Rick Pietri's squad hit a Twilight Zone-like, school-record 16-of-25 3-pointers in a 71-52 road win over a Troy University squad that had not fallen at home all season. JoAnna Williams hit 5-of-6 to lead the assault, while both Ashley Gamble and Raena Ellies nailed 4-of-6 in the eye-popping explosion. "It's not like Troy wasn't playing defense," UL coach J. Kelley Hall said after seeing video of the game. "I think 11 of the 16 (successful) treys were contested." "We shot it extremely well from the perimeter, and when you make shots it helps in other areas," said Pietri, understating the case. USA made 8-of-11 treys in the first half alone. Hall's Cajuns (11-3, 1-1) will try to do what Troy could not today at 7 p.m. against the 7-6, 1-0 Jaguars. The rest of the story Bruce Brown bbrown@theadvertiser.com

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MOBILE, Ala. - The Louisiana Ragin' Cajun women decided enough was enough here on Thursday night. The Cajuns had lost three straight games to South Alabama in the Mitchell Center under coach J. Kelley Hall, often in excruciating ways and always after leading in the second half, but this time it was different. This time it was the Cajuns who made the plays down the stretch, emerging with a 60-56 victory that re-energized the squad after last Saturday's humbling home loss to North Texas. Junior college transfer Yolanda Jones led the victory, scoring 30 points and pulling down 18 rebounds in a tour de force that included two tie-breaking free throws with 16.7 seconds to play, while senior center Sherita Anderson sealed the verdict with a pair of charities at the :08.7 mark. "It's difficult to say, but I think this team is beginning to grow up now," said Hall, whose Cajuns improved to 12-3 and 2-1 in the Sun Belt Conference. "I think it took that last loss against North Texas to wake them up. "It was a gut check, and our people stepped up and answered it. We made some changes within the team, and I saw some players willing to change tonight." "I wantd to make sure that last game didn't happen again," Jones said. "I really wanted to step up tonight." "This is a big, big win for us," Anderson said. "This gave us everything. Everything that we lost the other night, we got everything back." The rest of the story Bruce Brown bbrown@theadvertiser.com

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Sherita Anderson, Yolanda Jones, Amber Williams and Whitney Dunlap were relaxing in the indoor pool at Mobile's Fairfield Inn late Thursday night, enjoying a rare positive visit to South Alabama's Mitchell Center. Just couple of hours earlier, Jones and Anderson had made clutch free throws to produce a 60-56 victory in a crucial Sun Belt Conference West Division battle, the first win in four tries for coach J. Kelley Hall in that arena. The relieved Cajuns deserved the break. Now that they've shown they know how to reverse negative history, though, the Cajuns need to handle a little prosperity. Thursday's win enabled UL (12-3 overall) to climb back in the division race at 2-1, equal to North Texas and Denver entering today's slate of games. If Hall's squad can add another road triumph over Troy (7-6, 1-1) tonight, they'll be loaded with momentum. "We need to keep up our intensity against Troy," said senior point guard Ashley Blanche, who had 3 points and 6 rebounds on Thursday. "We need to keep playing defense, play the game hard and not slack up. We want to sweep this road trip." "If we can go 2-0 this would be the best road trip since I've been here," Anderson said. "If we play with the same teamwork, attitude and same work ethic, we can do it." The rest of the story Bruce Brown bbrown@theadvertiser.com

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After trailing by as many as 28 points, the Troy University women's basketball team fought back to within 10 but could never quite close the gap as it fell 81-69 to Louisiana-Lafayette on Saturday. Laura Lee Holman led Troy (7-7, 1-2) with 22 points, and Alecia Jones added 18. Audrey Muse finished with nine rebounds, and Santana Seay and Kylie Morrissy each handed out four assists. Onna Charles scored a career-high 35 points for the Ragin' Cajuns (13-3, 3-1), with 18 of those points coming off six three-point goals. Yolanda Jones added 19 points and grabbed 11 rebounds for ULL. The Ragin' Cajuns scored on their first nine possessions as they built a 21-4 lead just six minutes into the game. Leading 22-8, ULL went on an 11-0 run that gave it a 33-8 advantage with 8:44 left in the half. The rest of the story By Kara Moran Special to The Messenger