LAFAYETTE — Mental and physical strength.

For longtime Ragin’ Cajuns men’s basketball coach Bob Marlin, that combination is what is needed to deal with the Sun Belt Conference’s conference schedule of playing games on back-to-back nights.

“The endurance is important,” Marlin said. “Conditioning is an important part of it. You need to work the guys hard. We have some guys who have been nicked up and had some knee issues, so we don’t want to overwork them, but they need to prepare to come in and play quality minutes.”

Marlin also reiterated the importance of being mentally strong to deal with playing back-to-back games.

“There’s going to be a mental part to it and also some mental toughness where you just have to be physically strong and come back and condition mentally to take care of the second game,” Marlin said.

The University of Louisiana men’s basketball team will look to be stronger in both regards when it welcomes defending Sun Belt Conference champion Little Rock for a two-game series at the Cajundome today and Saturday. Tip is set for 6 p.m. today and at 4 p.m. on Saturday.

UL (7-2, 1-1 SBC) will be taking on a team that started conference with a rare sweep — one of only two teams to accomplish said feat.

Little Rock (6-3, 2-0 SBC) is led by Preseason SBC Player of the Year Rout Monyyong (12.7 points), as well as Markquis Nowell (17), Nikola Maric (15.0) and Ben Coupet Jr. (10.9).

Coupet Jr. earned SBC Player of the Week honors after averaging 26.5 points during the opening weekend series win against UT-Arlington.

“They had two big wins at home and we will get a great shot from them,” Marlin said. “It is going to be a challenge to knock them off two nights in a row but we are looking forward to it.”

The Ragin’ Cajuns will be aided greatly in that task with the return of Dou Gueye, who missed the two games against Texas State due to COVID-19. Gueye is averaging 10.4 points and 10.1 rebounds per game, which is one of the leaders in the SBC.

“We really missed him,” Marlin said.

Without Gueye, the Ragin’ Cajuns defense suffered in the second half of Saturday’s 71-59 loss to the Bobcats. In the final 20 minutes of that contest, Texas State shot a remarkable 75 percent from the field.

“The game was 24 all at the half,” Marlin said. “Our defense was good in the first half, and in the second half, our defense was left in the locker room.”

Whether that is Cedric Russell (17.6 points) or Mylik Wilson (14.6) driving to the basket, or Gueye and Theo Akwuba (10.8) posting up under the basket, UL will need to be efficient scoring inside and outside to take down Little Rock.

“We need to be able to score,” Marlin said. “We need to score on the interior. We also need to make threes.”