University of Louisiana at Lafayette Athletics
Poor Second Half Costs Cajuns
1/28/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Poor Second
Half Costs Cajuns
The Ragin' Cajuns
trailed by one at halftime but fell to Middle Tennessee,
73-59.
Saturday, Jan. 28, 2006
The homestanding Blue Raiders (10-9, 3-4 Sun Belt) used a quartet of three-point field goals from the 12:15 mark through 9:59 mark of the second stanza to grab the momentum and eventually hang on for a 73-59 victory over the Cajuns – the Blue Raiders first win in the series under head coach Kermit Davis snapping a five-game UL win streak.
The Blue Raiders three-point charge was lightning quick and turned a 36-34 advantage into a 48-40 lead at the midpoint of the second half. Louisiana-Lafayette slowly chipped away at the MT lead eventually crawling within one point at 56-55 on a Lucian Pesoli layup at .
The Cajuns (5-14, 1-7 Sun Belt) were down only two points, 57-55, after 90-percent free throw shooter Adam Vogelsberg made only one free throw on a two-shot foul at 4:18. UL re-inserted Michael Southall, who had sat out most of the game with foul trouble, to try and open up the inside game. On the next trip down the court, Pesoli attempted a lob pass for Southall but it sailed high and over the reach of the Cajuns senior center turning the ball back over the Blue Raiders.
Following the three-minute media timeout at , the Raiders worked the ball around to Vogelsberg who was at the top of the key and knocked down a crucial three-pointer with two defenders in his face and MT was up 60-55.
On the return trip down the court,
Southall couldn't grab hold of a pass and in bounced
out-of-bounds back over to
Southall, playing with four fouls, had to back off on the defensive end on the ensuing possession and Tim Blue worked his way for an inside basket at 2:32 that increased the MT advantage to 64-57.
Another Cajuns turnover, a charge foul called on Pesoli at , gave the Blue Raiders the ball. MT finished off the victory at the free throw line sinking nine charity stripers in the final .
The Cajuns defense, which held MT to 33 percent shooting in the first half, saw the Blue Raiders connected on 52 percent of its shots (12-of-23) in the second half and outscore the visitors 48-35. The Blue Raiders, who double the Cajuns from three-point land by a count of 10-5, made 7-of-13 triples in the second half.
The Blue Raiders were also able to protect the basketball turning the ball over only six times. UL could get only one steal and that was from Pesoli in the second half.
Louisiana-Lafayette played the game
without the services of starting guard Dwayne Mitchell and
he was missed on the offensive end. Mitchell sprained his
left ankle in the
Vogelsberg led all scorers with 21 points
on 6-of-10 shooting from three-point land. Middle
Pesoli led the Ragin' Cajuns with 13 points off the bench. His point total was the highest he's had in a Cajuns' uniform this season.
Points off of turnovers told the story in
the Cajuns' first loss to MT since falling 69-64 at the
The Ragin' Cajuns had to play nearly 13 minutes of the opening half without the inside presence of Michael Southall, but did a great job with its zone defense to keep the Blue Raiders within reach.
UL opened the game with a 5-0 run after its defense kept MT off the board until the mark. The Cajuns got tap-ins from Valentino Hart for the quick start.
The Blue Raiders countered with a string of seven unanswered points beginning with a Vogelsberg triple at .
Neither team scored in the 16-minute mark and it was a Kyle Young reverse layup after he got open behind the Cajuns' zone to tie the game 5-5 at . MT's defense collected a stop on the ensuing possession and the Raiders busted the zone again when Kanaskie lobbed a pass to Tim Blue who threw down a slam dunk at 15:22 to give MT the 7-5 lead.
Turnovers and missed shots marred the next four minutes of the contest. The only basket following Blue's dunk through the media timeout was a Southall slam dunk at that evened the score at 7-7.
The two teams traded scores with MT getting a bucket at and UL a Chris Cameron inside basket at . Lucian Pesoli made the first of two triples he would get over the next three minutes to push UL to a 15-11 lead at the mark.
The Blue Raiders reclaimed the lead going into the locker rooms by posting a 12-3 run from the mark through mark. Key to the run was a pair of Fats Cuyler three-point field goals over a span of 18 seconds that turned a three-point deficit into a three-point lead.
Cuyler evened the game at when he connected on his first triple of the game. On the next possession, Ed Turner attempted to answer for UL with a triple of his own and missed. The Raiders grabbed the rebound and worked the ball to Cuyler who was open for another long-range basket that created a 19-16 MT lead at .
After a Cuyler jumper at pushed the MT lead to 23-18, UL head coach Robert Lee called a timeout. The Cajuns, who switched to man-to-man defense briefly, went back to the zone and kept the Raiders to just two points in the final three minutes.
Maurice Barksdale began the Cajuns rally with a three-pointer at . Barksdale went around a screen and stopped and dropped in a wide-open look to cut the MT Lead to 23-21.
It was Barksdale's hustle following an offensive rebound on the Cajuns' next trip that created a three-point play that put the visitors back in front. Barksdale grabbed the loose ball off a missed shot at and went baseline and double-pumped to draw a foul and hit the basket. His free throw gave the Cajuns a 24-23 lead.
The Blue Raiders reclaimed the advantage at when Bud Howard hit a running one-handed jumper in the lane.
The Ragin' Cajuns will travel back to
CAJUN CLIPPINGS: Dwayne Mitchell did not start Saturday's game as he was battling a sprained left ankle suffered in the second half of the Western Kentucky game thus ending his string of 49 consecutive games started…Sophomore walk-on Rhett Hebert made his first career start in place of Mitchell…The loss was the Ragin' Cajuns' eighth straight defeat on the road since the overtime win at UTEP…UL falls to 1-11 on the road this season and 6-20 on the road under head coach Robert Lee…Lucian Pesoli was a perfect 3-for-3 from three-point range.
GAME SUMMARY
LOUISIANA-LAFAYETTE (5-14, 1-7) Pesoli, Lucian 5-8 0-0 13;
Barksdale, Maurice 4-7 3-3 12; Southall, Michael 3-7 6-7 12;
Cameron, Chris 2-2 5-6 9; Mouton, Ross 1-3 2-2 5; Hart,
Valentino 2-5 0-0 4; Turner, Ed 2-5 0-0 4; James, Adam 0-0
0-0 0; Hebert, Rhett 0-1 0-0 0; Mitchell, Dwayne 0-1 0-0 0;
Fields, J.T. 0-3 0-0 0. Totals 19-42 16-18 59.
MIDDLE TENNESSEE (10-9, 3-4) Vogelsberg, Adam 6-13 3-4 21;
Blue, Tim 5-8 4-4 14; Cuyler, Fats 5-9 1-2 13; Morrison,
Marcus 2-4 5-6 11; Kanaskie, Kevin 0-3 6-6 6; Hudson, Theryn
1-4 2-2 4; Young, Kyle 1-6 0-2 2; Howard, Bud 1-3 0-0 2;
O'Neil, Calvin 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 21-50 21-26 73.
Halftime Score: Middle
-Ragin' Cajuns-
