UL vs Oakland

[Big Buds]

When Long fouls out we'll have trouble.

I was thinking the same thing intill he received his 4th foul in like the 16:30 mark (my guess).The team responded well and steped up. Peyton and BM carried that 2nd half but no doubt Long can ball! Kid has got tramindous upside and is not afraid of his game.....this might be an interesting year.

[fpc4life99]

Crowd was terrible. Team really turned it on in the second half. I like how wronkoski plays. When Long fouls out we'll have trouble. Team is small. Team plays hard and has a few shooters. Tenacious D.

Hopefully we can put a few wins together and get bigger crowds.

I feel differently, I agree Long is great but the team really stepped up when he got his fourth foul and was fourced to the bench, He sat a large part of the second half due to fouls. With a smaller line up we had great pressure away from the rim and it created big mis-matches on the offensive side of the ball.

[CajunZ1]

With this one game, I totally agree the team responded when Long got his 4th. I hope that continues! But if I had to make a prediction for the season, I'd say Long will need significant time on the court to make up for our size.

This is actually kind of interesting: When's the last time we've had a small(er) basketball team? It seems like for the past decade we've always said, "we can't shoot well, but we're really athletic and long." Looking forward to watching this team.

[Hudsheen#Fired]

crowd was 2,025.
It was just a bad time for game considering the saints played at 12 and duck season just started

but the crowd will grow, as word will get out about how fun a team this is to watch, and as long as we continue to win. We can maybe see a 10,000 crowd this season

[anhil8tor]

I loved what I saw out of the guys last night.. Hustle... good shots.. hell we even made some free throws.. this year will be fun to watch.

[CajunEXPRESS]

Payton still can't shoot free throws, but he made two jumpers I remember. One a three when we needed it, and another about a twelve footer. I saw none of those last season, not one. The only shots he made last season were layups that I recall.

The game was played at half court pace in the first half, and Oakland took our lunch. In the second half we pressed and ran, and good things happened.

The crowd? The team got the crowd the prior seasons team deserved, and helped to create. It is their team now, they will create big crowds if they do not play too many Sunday games, and continue to be a fast paced team, not a half court team.

[Boomer]

Payton still can't shoot free throws, but he made two jumpers I remember. One a three when we needed it, and another about a twelve footer. I saw none of those last season, not one. The only shots he made last season were layups that I recall.

The game was played at half court pace in the first half, and Oakland took our lunch. In the second half we pressed and ran, and good things happened.

The crowd? The team got the crowd the prior seasons team deserved, and helped to create. It is their team now, they will create big crowds if they do not play too many Sunday games, and continue to be a fast paced team, not a half court team.

----It is really hard to believe that the 3 EP hit was the first of his career---My strategy against the Cajuns--get the ball in low to Long' man---foul Long out of the game---We need to have all the guys with any inside ability step up and guard the opponent's #5 ----I can see Marlin's way coming out in this team---left over baggage and an assistant coach ruined last year!!!

[CajunAmos]

Crowd was terrible. Team really turned it on in the second half. I like how wronkoski plays. When Long fouls out we'll have trouble. Team is small. Team plays hard and has a few shooters. Tenacious D.

Hopefully we can put a few wins together and get bigger crowds.

I do have to say that the Cajuns push in the second half was with Long on the bench in foul trouble. I thought the smaller guys battled on the boards, and only wound up being out-rebounded by two. The positive was 17 assists to 14 turnovers. Last year, 20+ turnovers a game was the norm.

[Cajunsmike]

Nice game.

Also...great to see no pouting when players are being substituted for. That got very old last year.

Team did play together last night as they were more interested in what they did as a group vs what they did individually. Evidence of that was what we saw during timeouts. The entire team was focused on the message the coaches were trying to deliver. That included the players who did not see much action. Also encouraging is how young the team is and the potential they have to improve. In the first half, over half the points were scored by freshman. I seem to recall that when we signed guys like Moore and Shepherd people were saying things like, they probably can't help us much as they did not have high recruiting rankings. Both helped us quite a bit last night. Moving on, next game is at Texas Southern on Friday. They are picked to win the SWAC. Every road game is an adventure, it will be especially so with such a young team. In other words, they may have more talent than the opponent and not win due to not knowing how to handle the road experience.

[cajun4life]

Any word on Soto?