On Saturday, Feb. 3, Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns basketball again met the South Alabama Jaguars, this time in the Cajundome for the team’s scheduled Black Out Game event. The home team won in stunning fashion, grabbing the lead five minutes in and never relinquishing it to the final buzzer in a 80–60 blowout.
The Cajuns now sit at 8–3 since Dec. 30, just two games back of the No. 1-seeded Appalachian State in the Sun Belt Conference standings. More importantly, the team is unbeaten at home since the Jan. 4 James Madison game. The squad has responded to the early doubts in the best way possible.
“We remembered last game, how much we were locked in. We knew we had to get a dub,” junior forward Joe Charles said in a post-game interview.
Responding to a question on how the team exploded to 43% perimeter shooting for the game, one of their best performances of the season, Charles said, “Preparation. We always clown sometimes, but we’re always locked in. We’ve got something called the 300 Club that we have to do every day, get our shots up so we can shoot 40 percent and up.”
“I thought we did a real nice job, and the threes were timely. The ones we missed were good shots. I wish we would’ve shot a little better percentage,” Cajuns head coach Bob Marlin said in his own post-game interview after counting out the number of players who made 3-point shots (four). “We had good looks at it.”
Fellow junior forward Hosana Kitenge, who notched another double-double with 18 points and 11 rebounds, echoed Charles’ points on work behind the scenes. “Like Joe said, it’s just about preparation,” Kitenge said.
“We went down to Mobile a couple weeks ago, similar story, we were playing inside-out. Credit the guys for shooting the ball so well, it opens me up on the inside too… when the ball’s dropping, it’s dropping,” Kitenge said.
The Cajuns out-rebounded the Jaguars by 49–30 in the contest, and Kitenge stressed how important effort in securing the boards has become for the team lately.
“We work on it every day in practice. It’s one of the most important things in basketball, rebounding. Credit to the coaching staff and credit to our teammates too, just getting after it, being relentless on the [offensive] boards and the defensive glass too. When Joe’s taking fifteen rebounds, Kobe [Julien]’s getting ten, and I’m getting 11, we should be confident moving forward that we can rebound with anybody,” Kitenge said.
Defensive effort was a point of emphasis coming into the game for Marlin.
“Second half, I thought we did a great job defensively early,” Marlin said. “They didn’t score a field goal, I don’t think, for probably three-and-a-half minutes.”
Marlin later credited Julien, Kitenge and Charles for their double-double efforts, noting that it had been three seasons since a Cajuns team had accomplished that feat.
Marlin showed respect to the Jaguars, who were without head coach Ritchie Riley for the contest, and expressed the importance of the rivalry. “They played good basketball at the end of the year if you remember,” Marlin said
“They were the hottest team in the league outside of us, and they were hotter than us, really. We had trouble with them here to go undefeated at the Cajundome for the first time in fifty years,” Marlin said.
Just eight games remain on the men’s schedule before the SBC Tournament. Next up is a midweek matchup against the Georgia State Panthers on Wednesday, Feb. 7.