The Book: 2002-2003 Basketball (Ragin'Cajuns)

[Turbine]

Tie game 8:24 left

Bridges gets called for offensive charging.

Cedrick Williams is erroneously called for the foul.

Cedrick protests and officials correct their call.

[Turbine]

7:15

66-66

[Turbine]

after creating a turnover with a steal KJ get 400th assist of his career.

[Turbine]

Southall fouls Kennedy on a made shot and free throw.

UAB 69
Louisiana 68

5:52

[Turbine]

Washington gets fouled hard and is hurt bad. Taken out out a stretcher. Bloody and feeling numbness he shakes hands with Soutall on the way out.

Boyd takes his freee throws.

Tie game

[Turbine]

Just like htat

UAB leads by 5

2:00

[Turbine]

Boyd steal.

gets fouled.

Makes 1st
misses 2nd
has 22 points

Louisiana down by 4

Louisian gets rebound

Boyd makes 3 points

78-77 UAB

[Turbine]

Finnley 2 pointer

UAB 80
Louisiana 77

less than a minute

AJ 18

80
79

:30.14

[1stTake]

Cajuns lost because they didn't get the ball to Southall enough, 3 shots is a travesty.

[NewsCopy]

Jessie's post game comments

Originally posted by cajunsmike on Delphi

I will paraphrase here as I do not remember all his exact quotes.

Pleased with the effort. Proud of the guys for battling the entire game in the face of adversity. That adversity being Laurie fouling out early in the second half and Washington being injured.

Also, the officiating seemed to let the crowd get to them. It's not the calls they made so much as the calls they did not make. We were physically hammered on many plays in which calls were not made.

Disappointed with the outcome and execution at times. Turnovers were even so that was not as much a factor as some have made it out to be. Execution being that we did not finish certain plays. We need to be strong enough on these plays to complete them despite being fouled.

The free throw shooting did hurt us and was a direct factor in the outcome. An example was Boyd making only 1 of 3 while being fouled on a three. He was shooting 86% going into the game.

Looking ahead, we have guards coming in that will allow us to be more physical defensively while being just at athletic and we believe the guys we have coming back will continue to improve.

In the offseason, there are three points of emphasis. Those are get strong in the weight room, each player work to get better on their individual games, and each player make sure to take care of their business in the classroom. He would hate to have a situation like we had this year when three important players were ineligible for the early part of the year.

My take on his comments. I am encouraged by his remarks concerning what we need to do in the offseason, particularly the classroom part.
Hopefully, the guys get this message and do take care of their business in that area. The weight room comments are directed at Michael Southall. He definitely needs to get stronger. The reason he does not get the ball as often as our fans would like is that he does not work hard enough to get the ball. Being stronger will help him in that regard.

Final comment. Much better effort than last season in the NIT. Playing this game on the road was difficult. I believe we were sent on the road due to our poor performance in the conference tournament while UAB did well in their tournament. Had we gotten to the finals and played well but lost against WKU, we would have gotten the home game. I hope that is a lesson the guys returning remember.