University of Louisiana at Lafayette Athletics
Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns
North Texas
Mean Green No Match For Ragin' Cajuns
2/24/2003 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Monday, Feb. 24, 2003
LAFAYETTE – Louisiana-Lafayette's Ragin' Cajuns men's basketball team shot above 50 percent in each half, posted 22 assists and forced North Texas into 18 turnovers in cruising to a 94-60 win over the Mean Green here Monday at the Cajundome in Sun Belt Conference men's basketball action.
With the win Louisiana-Lafayette extends the nation's fifth-longest home court winning streak to 21 games, a Cajundome record, and has now 16 straight Sun Belt Conference games in the 'Dome.
UL Lafayette (20-7, 12-2 Sun Belt) also won its 20th game of the season giving the Ragin' Cajuns back-to-back 20-plus win seasons for the first time under head coach Jessie Evans and the third time in the last four years (25-9 in 1999-00 and 20-11 in 2001-02). The back-to-back 20-win seasons are a first since the 1990-91 and 1991-92 seasons.
The win sets up a showdown with Western Kentucky (19-8, 10-2 Sun Belt) on Wednesday, Feb. 26 in the Cajundome for the outright overall Sun Belt Conference championship. It's also a chance for the Cajuns to record the school's first perfect season in the Cajundome. UL Lafayette will enter the WKU game 10-0 at home in the 'Dome.
Brad Boyd led all Cajuns scorers with 19 points on 5-of-7 shooting, all from three-point range, and added four free throws in 19 minutes of action. Antoine Landry scored 14 points off the bench, Anthony Johnson had 12 and Robert Jupiter chipped in with 11 as the Cajuns placed four players in double figures.
Senior guard Kenneth Lawrence led the Cajuns with five assists to go along with his six points. A total of 10 players combined for all 22 UL Lafayette assists, with seven tallying at least two assists.
NT (7-19, 2-12 Sun Belt) lost its sixth straight and 12th in its last 13 SBC outings. The Mean Green was paced by Michael DeGrate's 12 points, the lone NT player to reach double digits in scoring.
The Cajuns defeated the Mean Green for the ninth time in the last 10 meetings and remain unbeaten all-time at the Cajundome (5-0) versus NT. UL Lafayette sweeps the season series (won 89-58 in Denton) and has won 5-of-6 SBC meetings since NT joined the league.
Louisiana-Lafayette shot 35-for-65 for the game (54 percent), the second straight game in which the Ragin' Cajuns shot above 50 percent. It was the 12th time this season that the Cajuns shot above 50 percent in a game.
UL Lafayette outrebounded North Texas 45-28 and had a 36-21 edge on the defensive glass.
A grand total of 14 players saw action for the Cajuns.
The 34-point margin of victory is the largest of the season, besting the 31-point win over NT in Denton, Texas, on Jan. 30.
The Cajuns trailed for a brief moment the entire game. NT”s Michael DeGrate hit a 22-foot jumper at the top of the key which gave the Mean Green an early 3-0 lead at 19:35.
Bridges put the Cajuns on the board with a three of his own 20 feet right of the baseline to tie the game at 3-3 with 19:22 left in the first half. Boyd would put the Cajuns on top for good with a free throw at 18:57 after he was fouled driving for a layup after a steal near midcourt. He would then follow that with his first three of the game.
Seven points later and the Cajuns had an 11-0 run and an 11-3 lead at 17:25. After a DeGrate basket at 15:41 cut the Cajuns lead to 16-7, Boyd hit his second three-pointer of the game to put the Cajuns up double digits at 19-7. The lead never dipped below double figures from that point on.
A 16-2 run over a span of five minutes would stake the Ragin' Cajuns to a 26-point lead at 37-11 with 9:24 left in the first half. NT would use an 11-3 run over the next four-plus minutes to trim the lead to 18 points at 40-22 with 5:04 remaining in the opening frame, the last time the lead fell below 20 points in the half.
A Washington driving layup followed by a Chris Cameron inside basket at 4:02 put the Cajuns up 22 points. The lead grew to a first-half high 27 points on an Antoine Landry three-pointer and a pair of Washington freebies. Louisiana-Lafayette led 49-22 with 2:09 left in the first half.
A Mean Green basket by Jerome Rogers with 11 seconds left before intermission was the only points in the final 2:09 and UL Lafayette led 49-24 at the break.
The Cajuns shot 16-of-28 in the opening stanza (57 percent) and hit 9 of their first 11 shots. UL Lafayette was 7-of-13 from three-point range with Boyd 3-of-4.
The Mean Green struggled from the field, shooting a paltry 28 percent in the first half (9-for-32).
Both teams played sloppy in the first 20 minutes. The Cajuns did force 10 NT turnovers, but committed a total of 11.
Thirteen players saw action in the opening frame for Louisiana-Lafayette and not a single one had more than 11 minutes.
The Cajuns continued to build its lead in the second half leading by as many as 35 points, 92-57, on a Landry rebound of a Scooter Owens miss with 42 seconds left to play. The lead, which was 25 points at the half, never fell below 23 points in the second stanza
Louisiana-Lafayette will conclude its 2002-03 regular season on Wednesday, Feb. 26 at 8:30 p.m. (CST) against Sun Belt East Division leader Western Kentucky live nationally on ESPN 2. The game is also slated as season ticket redemption night, allowing any season ticket holder to redeem any unused tickets from earlier games for extras to Wednesday's game.
-- Ragin' Cajuns --
