Cajuns hold off UTA in first round of tourney

Published 12:00 am Friday, March 4, 2022

Kobe Julien was not available.

The second-leading scorer for the Louisiana men’s basketball team was ruled out of Thursday’s opening round game of the Sun Belt Conference Tournament. With a knee injury keeping Julien, and his 13-points per game average, from suiting up against UT Arlington, somebody else had to step up inside the Pensacola Bay Center.

“Kobe was a big piece to our team,” Ragin’ Cajuns guard Jalen Dalcourt said. “He contributed a lot of scoring, so losing him was a big blow. Guys just had to step up and play their roles. That’s exactly what we did. We stuck to the system and just played our roles.”

Led by Dalcourt and Greg Williams Jr., No. 8 Louisiana held off a late rally by No. 9 UTA for a 67-64 victory.

“Typical Sun Belt Conference game for us,” longtime head coach Bob Marlin said. “The nice thing about this one was that we came out on top. We’ve had eight games like this that went the other way at the end. This was an important win for us.”

After a quick layup by UTA’s Patrick Mwamba to begin the contest, Louisiana responded by going on a 7-0 run including the first of five three-pointers by Dalcourt, who finished with a team-high 16 points and shot 5-of-6 from beyond the arc.

“Just a lot of reps, getting up a lot of shots and just letting my confidence transfer over to the game,” Dalcourt said of his performance. “Just being confident and not hesitating on my shot — just letting it fly.”

Louisiana (14-14) kept letting it fly and pushed its lead to 17 points after Durey Caldwell hit a 3-pointer with 6:44 left in the opening half.

UTA managed to cut it down to 12 points after a 3-pointer and a pair of free throws by David Azore. The Mavericks star scored 23 points in the game but had to fight for every bucket as he went 6-of-19 from the field.

“Greg Williams did a really nice job on him the majority of the game,” Marlin said of how his team defended Azore. “We switched a little bit. He’s tough, he’s tough. He’s very good at drawing fouls. He got to the free-throw line in the first half.”

After the Ragin’ Cajuns pushed the lead back to 17 points twice, both after Dalcourt threes, the Mavericks closed out the half on a 8-0 run, with Azore scoring six of the points.

Louisiana led 36-27 at halftime.

“Defensively, we were really good early and we were scoring the ball, too, thanks to these two guys (Williams, Dalcourt),” said Marlin, who’s team shot 57 percent from 3-point range. “They hit some big shots for us. Greg was aggressive and Jalen was aggressive, and they pressed so we were able to get good looks in the open court.”

UTA (11-18) came out strong in the second half but Louisiana answered multiple times. With three minutes left in the game, the Ragin’ Cajuns held a 14-point lead.

Louisiana would not make a field goal for the last two minutes and UTA mounted a rally going on a 15-5 run. After a three-pointer by Azore, the Mavericks trailed by only 3 points with two seconds left in regulation.

After a Ragin’ Cajuns turnover, the Mavericks would get the ball back but Azore’s 3-point attempt hit the side of the backboard. With the win, Louisiana advances to the SBC Tournament quarterfinals and will take on No. 1 seed Texas State. Tip is set for 11:30 a.m. on Saturday.

“Nothing’s ever easy for us, I tell you,” Marlin said. “I knew they were going to make a run at us, which they did.”