Cajuns Host UALR On Thursday To Continue League Play

Contact: Brian McCann

Complete Game Notes (PDF)

Game 25
UALR (12-12, 7-5) at Louisiana (15-9, 6-5)
Date: Thursday, Feb. 13, 2014
Time: 7:05 p.m. CST
Site: Cajundome (11,550), Lafayette, Louisiana
Radio: KPEL (1420 AM) & KHXT (107.9 FM) (Jay Walker)
TV: None
Series:        Louisiana leads, 22-18
Last Meeting: UALR 80, Louisiana 69 (1/30/14, Little Rock, Ark.)

THE COACHES:
LOUISIANA
BOB MARLIN (Mississippi State '81)
At Louisiana: 58-60 (4th year)
4-Year Overall: 283-191 (16th year)
All Collegiate: 406-226 (21st year)
vs. UALR: 3-4

UALR
STEVE SHIELDS (Baylor '88)
At UALR: 176-154 (11th year)
Overall: 176-154 (11th year)
vs. Louisiana: 11-6

SETTING THE SCENE: Rejuvenated following three consecutive league wins over ULM and at both UT Arlington and Texas State, the Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns (15-9, 6-5) return home to play four of its next five games. The stretch starts against UALR on Thursday, Feb. 13 beginning at 7:05 p.m. in the Cajundome. The Cajuns begin the week in fifth place in the Sun Belt, percentage points out of fourth, which would receive a first round bye in the SBC Championship. They swept a pair of games over the weekend in Texas, edging UT Arlington, 92-89, on Thursday before rallying from 12 points down to defeat Texas State, 67-66, on a Xavian Rimmer trey with 11.6 seconds left on Saturday. This will be the second meeting in two weeks against UALR with the Trojans claiming the first, an 80-69 decision in Little Rock on Jan. 30. Louisiana however continues to hold a 22-18 lead in the all-time series with UALR.

PREVIEWING LOUISIANA: As the Sun Belt season continues the second half of its season, Louisiana is 15-9 overall and 6-5 in league play. The Cajuns have benefited from the return of five starters and 10 lettermen from last year's 13-20 team, leading fourth-year head coach Bob Marlin to feel confident that the Cajuns have taken a big step forward. The team is centered around the duo of point guard Elfrid Payton (19.7 ppg, 5.8 rpg, 5.8 apg, 2.3 spg) and forward Shawn Long (20.3 ppg, 10.9 rpg, 2.9 bpg), both of whom were named to the preseason All-Sun Belt first team this year. Long plays mostly at center with Elridge Moore (4.6, 3.7) playing at power forward and Bryant Mbamalu (8.4, 3.4), who started 26 games as a wing guard last season, is starting on the wing, opposite junior newcomer Xavian Rimmer (7.8, 2.0). The bench has been solid with junior Kevin Brown (6.1, 1.7) providing depth at guard, sophomore Steven Wronkoski (4.8, 2.2) seeing action both on the wing and at small forward and junior J.J. Davenport (3.7, 3.1), who played the last two seasons at New Mexico Junior College, playing at center. Injuries have hurt the Cajuns as Bryant Mbamalu (foot) missed the first 12 games, Elridge Moore (leg) was sidelined for five games and sophomore guard Kasey Shepherd (8.2, 2.4) is out indefinitely. The third unit consists of a trio of freshmen, Hayward Register (3.0) at guard, Luka Kamber (0.5, 1.3) at forward and Vieux Kande (1.1, 0.8) at center. Marlin is utilizing the depth and quickness by forcing an up-tempo game at both ends of the court by applying more defensive pressure. The Cajuns use their quickness and outside shooting ability to create a balanced offense, forcing opponents to cover the entire court.

LOUISIANA IN THE NCAA STATS: The Cajuns were featured prominently in the latest NCAA stats, which were released on Monday (Feb. 10). Shawn Long was fifth in double-doubles (13), eighth in rebounds (10.9), ninth in field goals made (178), 22nd in blocks (2.9) and 23rd in scoring (20.3). Junior Elfrid Payton was 15th in steals (2.3), 25th in assists (5.8) and 37th in scoring (19.7), owning one of seven triple-doubles in the nation this year. As a team, the Cajuns were 19th in scoring offense (80.8), 35th in steals (7.8) and 43rd in three-point field goal defense (.309).

MAKING THE GRADE: One thing that head coach Bob Marlin has emphasized in his three seasons at Louisiana is the necessity that his players give 100-percent both on and off the court. This demand has led to positive results in the classroom. During the spring 2013 semester, the Ragin' Cajuns set a program record with a 2.904 grade point average for the team. They backed that up with a 2.854 during the recently completed fall semester, the second-highest average in the 31 years that athletics has tracked grades, with eight of the 15 players posting a 3.0 or better. In seven semesters under head coach Bob Marlin, the Cajuns have recorded seven of the top 10 semesters in program history.

MAKING THE GRADE, PART 2: Thursday night's game against UALR will feature a special halftime ceremony as the Louisiana athletic department will honor the Ragin' Cajuns student-athletes for another outstanding semester in the class room. At the game, 212 student-athletes will be recognized for posting a 3.0 GPA or higher during the term, representing 57.6% of the Louisiana student-athletes, and 29 will be recognized for having a perfect 4.0. They combined to have a 2.970 GPA, the highest semester for student-athletes in school history with 10 of the 16 sports owning a team GPA of 3.0 or higher.

LONG NAMED SUN BELT & LSWA PLAYER OF THE WEEK. . . AGAIN: For the third time this season, sophomore Shawn Long has been named the Sun Belt Conference Player of the Week. In addition, Long has also picked up his second Louisiana Sports Writers Player of the Week honor. Long earned the honor after averaging 25.5 points and 10.5 rebounds to lead the Cajuns to road wins at UT Arlington (92-89) and Texas State (67-66) by a total of four points. Long scored a career-high 31 points with eight rebounds in the win over UT Arlington and came back to post a double-double with 20 points and 13 rebounds at Texas State. Long previously picked ub SBC accolades on Nov. 12 & 26 and was the LSWA honoree on Dec. 3 for the period covering the first month of the season.

LONG APPROACHES 1,000 POINT MARK: A 20-point effort at Texas State on Saturday has moved Shawn Long within 22 points of becoming the 41st player in school history to score 1,000 points in a career. Long enters the week with 978 career points and he would join teammate Elfrid Payton (1,225 points) on the list of 1,000 point scorers. Long would be the fifth sophomore to accomplish the feat, joining Bo Lamar (1,631 points), Andrew Toney (1,269), Kevin Brooks (1,053) and Jerry Flake (1,042).

CAJUNS CLOSE IN ON 16TH WIN: The Ragin' Cajuns return home this week with a 15-9 record, needing one more victory to equal the previous win the 16 wins that the Cajuns totalled in 2011-12, the second season under head coach Bob Marlin. The 16 wins are the most by a Louisiana team since the Cajuns went 20-10 in 2002-03.

HAYWARD REGISTERS A CAREER HIGH: With the Cajuns guards in early foul trouble, Bob Marlin turned to freshman Hayward Register, who was scoreless in the seven minutes of action in Sun Belt play this year. Register responded by scoring a career-high 17 points -- more than double his previous best of seven points -- going five-for-seven from three-point in 17 minutes. Register came back to score five points at Texas State, all five coming during the Cajuns' second half rally.

FINALLY A THURSDAY WIN: The win over UT Arlington on Thursday (Feb. 6) marked the first win for the Cajuns in five Thursday night games this season. Hopefully the win is a sign of good things to come as Louisiana has at least three more Thursday night games remaining.

SHOOTING IS THE DIFFERENCE: Thursday night's win at UT Arlington marked the 13th time that the Cajuns have shot better from the field than their opponent in a game this season with Louisiana being a perfect 13-0 in those games. At the other end of the spectrum, the Cajuns are just 2-9 when their opponents shoots a higher percentage from the field. Turnovers have proven to be unimportant this season as Louisiana is 6-4 when committing more turnovers than its opponent and 8-5 when committing less.

. . . AND SHOOTING WASN'T THE DIFFERENCE: The win over Texas State on Saturday marked just the second time om 11 games this season that Louisiana has won a game despite shooting a lower field goal percentage than its opponent. The Cajuns were 22-for-59 from the field (.373) while Texas State shot .511 (24-47). The other game that Louisiana won despite being outshot was vs. Houston when the Cougars shot .529 (27-51) to .456 (26-57) for the Cajuns.

THE GOOD HEALTH LASTED JUST SIX GAMES: Cajuns head coach Bob Marlin has disputed the fact listed in most preseason stories that Louisiana has benefited from the return of all five starters this year because up until the UT Arlington game on Jan. 11, he had not had the good fortune to have all five starters from last year healthy at the same time. The return of Elridge Moore for the UT Arlington contest gave Marlin a complete roster of 15 healthy players for the first time all season. Bryant Mbamalu, who started 25 games last year, missed the first 12 games of the year with a foot injury and Moore had been sidelined with an ankle sprain since mid-December. The healthy lineup lasted just six games as the Cajuns played the UALR contest without reserve guard Kasey Shepherd, who is out indefinitely with a knee injury, and forward Luka Kamber, who missed the game with a concussion.

. . . AND THE RETURNING STARTING FIVE HASN'T STARTED TOGETHER: Last year, the starting lineup of Elfrid Payton (G0, Bryant Mbamalu (G), Steven Wronkoski (G), Elridge Moore (F) and Shawn Long (F), combined to start 144 games for the Cajuns, including 12 together as the starting five. Despite all five players returning this season and head coach Bob Marlin using 10 different starting units, they have yet to start a game together this year.

PAYTON PASSES PAYTON: With six free throw attempts against ULM on Saturday and 14 more in two games this past week, Elfrid Payton raised his season total to 224, passing himself on the single season free throw chart. The 224 attempts is good for sixth place, 15 free throw attempts ahead of the 209 charity tosses he had last year.

. . . AND LONG PASSES LONG: Elfrid Payton wasn't the only Cajun to surpass a previous accomplishment as Shawn Long blocked one shot at UT Arlington on Thursday to raise his season total to 66, passing himself for sixth place on the single-season chart. Long 65 blocked shots last year, ranking him seventh on the season total in school history.

100 GAMES FOR MBAMALU: When Bryant Mbamalu started the UT Arlington game on Thursday, he became the 40th player in school history to play in 100 career games. Mbamalu, who played in his 101st game at Texas State, has scored 895 points (8.9 ppg) with 257 rebounds, 105 assists, 69 steals and 82 three-pointers.

A SHOOTING PERFORMANCE FOR PAYTON: Elfrid Payton was quite efficient against ULM on Feb. 1, going 13-for-14 from the field on his way to scoring a game-high 28 points. The shooting effort was the second-best on the team this year, trailing only the school-record equalling 12-for-12 game by Shawn Long against Centenary. Payton enters the week ranking 10th in the Sun Belt shooting .505 (159-316).

DAVENPORT SHINES: With Shawn Long out of the lineup for the UALR game on Jan. 30, junior J.J. Davenport stepped up and turned in the best performance of his Cajuns career. Playing a career-high 27 minutes, Davenport registered his first career double-double, setting additional career highs with 14 points and 11 rebounds. He became the third Cajuns player to register a double-double this season, joining Long (13) and Payton (5).

A TRIPLE-DOUBLE FOR PAYTON: After flirting with it a half-dozen times over the last 40 games, junior Elfrid Payton recorded the first triple-doule of his career when he set career highs for scoring (34), rebounds (11) and assists (11) at ULM on Jan. 4. It was the sixth triple-double in school history and one of seven in the nation this year. Michael Southall recorded the last triple-double by a Cajun when he had one at North Texas in 2005-06. Here are a list of triple-doubles in Cajuns basketball history (all are points-rebounds-assists except where noted with *):

        Elfrid Payton at ULM (Jan. 4, 2014) (34 pts, 11 reb, 11 asst.)
        Michael Southall @ North Texas (Jan. 5, 2006) (19 pts, 12 reb, 11 blocks)
        Aaron Mitchell vs. Jackson State (Dec. 1, 1989) (21-10-10)
        Randal Smith vs. Rider (Jan. 8, 1987) (22-11-11)
        George Almones vs. Long Island (Jan. 28, 1985) (12-16-11)
        George Almones vs. ULM (Feb. 14, 1983) (14-10-12)

QUALITY MINUTES FOR WILLIAMS: With Kasey Shepherd sidelined with a knee injury and Kevin Brown in moderate foul trouble, Bob Marlin turned to walk-on guard Donovan Williams with 3:34 left in the first half against ULM (2/1/14) and the Cajuns trailing, 21-20. Williams provided Louisiana with a spark, assisting on an Elfrid Payton basket with 2:56 left that gave the Cajuns the lead for good and later made the steal that led to a Payton dunk that gave Louisiana a 24-21 halftime lead. Prior to Saturday, Williams' only action in Sun Belt play came when he played the final minute in an 81-58 win over Texas State on Jan. 13.

PAYTON HAS SPENT THE SEASON AT THE LINE: With 224 free throw attempts this year, Elfrid Payton enters the week ranked tied for third nationally in free throw attempts. Niagara's Antoine Mason leads the country with 270 attempts while Tennessee State's Patrick Miller (236) is second and Duquesne's Ovie Soko is tied with Payton at 224. Payton has shot 566 career free throws, including 133 as a freshman in 2011-12 and 209 in 2012-13. He has attempted eight or more free throws in a game 16 times this season.

MARLIN CLAIMS 400TH VICTORY: Louisiana head coach Bob Marlin used a 90-58 win over Central Methodist on Dec. 30 to claim his 400th as a head coach at the collegiate level. Marlin enters the weekend with a 406-226 record (.642) in 21 seasons as a head coach. He was 123-35 in five seasons at Pensacola Junior College (1990-95), winning the 1993 national championship, and 225-131 in 12 years at Sam Houston State (1998-2010). He reached the 50-win mark at Louisiana in the win over Houston on Dec. 14 and owns a 58-60 record.

PAYTON MOVES UP SCORING CHART: A 10-point effort against Texas State on Saturday enabled Elfrid Payton to move past Anthony Johnson (1,224 points from 2000-03) and into 27th place on the career scoring list with 1,225 points. Payton became the 40th Cajun to score 1,000 career points in the win over Central Methodist on Dec. 30. Payton, who is averaging 19.7 points, has three career 30-point games and has scored 20 or more points 23 times.

SCORING OFF THE GLASS: Shawn Long has made the most of his rebounding opportunities this year, scoring 49 baskets off his 87 offensive rebounds this season for an average of 4.3 points a game. Long ranks third in the Sun Belt averaging 3.7 offensive rebounds a game and second in scoring (20.3).

MBAMALU BACK: After missing the first 12 games of the season with a foot injury suffered in September, senior Bryant Mbamalu returned to the lineup on Dec. 30 and has played in the last 10 games. Mbamalu is averaging 8.4 points and 3.4 rebounds, startin g the last 10 games. Mbamalu scored a season-high 14 points vs. both Texas State and ULM, and has shot 13-for-36 (.361) from behind the three-point line this season. As a junior in 2012-13, Mbamalu started all but seven games as a wing guard, averaging 13.8 points and 3.7 rebounds a game, finishing second on the team with 49 treys. He scored in double figures 21 times, including five 20-point games.

20-POINT GAMES: The versatility of the Louisiana lineup this season is evident by the four Cajuns who have combined to score 20 or more points in a game 28 times this season, surpassing the total for the entire 2012-13 season. Elfrid Payton (13) and Shawn Long (12) lead the way, including five contests in which they both scored 20 points. Xavian Rimmer (2) and Kasey Shepherd (1) have come off the bench to reach the mark. Last year, Cajuns players had 25, 20-point games, with all but one coming from a starter. Payton and Long had nine each with Bryant Mbamalu adding five and Alan-Michael Thompson getting two.

. . . AND 30-POINT EFFORTS: When Shawn Long set a career-high with 31 points at UT Arlington on Thursday (Feb. 6), it marked the fifth time this season that a Ragin' Cajuns player scored 30 or more points in a game. It was the second 30-point effort by Long, who also had 30 points vs. Centenary, while Elfrid Payton owns three of the efforts, scoring 31 points against Houston (Dec. 14), 32 points vs. Oakland (Nov. 23) and 34 at ULM (Jan. 4) while Shawn Long has the other, a 30-point effort vs. Centenary. Last year, the only 30-point game by a Cajun came when Payton scored 32 points against WKU.

RIMMER COMES THROUGH IN THE CLUTCH: Junior Xavian Rimmer has only been with the Cajuns for 24 games, but he is quickly gaining a reputation for making the last-second shot. Rimmer made a game-winning three-point shot with 11.6 seconds left at Texas State to cap a Cajuns rally from 12 points down to claim the win. At Jackson State on Dec. 19, he made a three-pointer with nine seconds left to tie the game at 67-67. On Jan. 4 at ULM, he was fouled with 2.3 seconds left and made all three free throws to tie the game at 74-74 and force overtime.

PAYTON MOVES UP TO SIXTH IN ASSISTS: With 18 assists in his last four games, Elfrid Payton has moved past both Kenneth Lawrence (401 assists from 2000-03) and George Almones (402, 1983-85) and into sixth place on the Louisiana career assist chart with 418 career assists. Payton has a ways to go to continue his climb, needing 53 assists to catch fifth place Eric Mouton (1988-92), who has 471 assists.

LONG MOVES INTO FOURTH ON BLOCKS CHART: Fourteen blocked shots in the last five games has propelled sophomore Shawn Long past Tyren Johnson (120 blocks from 2007-08) and into fourth place on the career blocks list with 131 career blocks. Long has 66 blocks this year and 65 last season, the sixth and seventh-highest single season total in Cajuns history, and 57 this season.

LONG LIKES TO DOUBLE UP: Sophomore Shawn Long picked right up where he left off last spring, registering double-doubles in 13 of the 23 games that he has played in to rank fifth nationally. Long has 31 double-doubles in 56 career games. He enters the week leading the SBC in blocked shots (2.9), rebounding (10.9) and defensive rebounding (7.1), ranked second in scoring (20.3), third in offensive rebounds (3.7) and seventh in field goal pct. (.528).

NEXT UP: The Cajuns remain at home on Saturday (Feb. 15), hosting Arkansas State beginning at 7:15 p.m. in the Cajundome.

Cajuns Host UALR On Thursday To Continue League Play

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