NEW ORLEANS — Justin Miller came off the bench and helped spark his team to victory.

The Owensboro, Kentucky native had seen his playing time drop significantly this season for the Louisiana-Lafayette men’s basketball team after starting 31 games as true freshman when he averaged 11 points and 5 rebounds per game.

With Missouri transfer JaKeenan Gant manning the power forward position this season for the Ragin’ Cajuns, Miller had been regulated to the second-team. Miller has played less than half of the minutes he had played the previous season, as he has also battled both back and ankle injuries in the last quarter of the regular season.

Miller played like a starter though on Friday after he was substituted for Gant, the Sun Belt Conference Defensive Player of the Year and Newcomer of the Year, who left the game due to sickness. Miller scored 11 points in 12 minutes of the first half, including draining three three-pointers in the first half, on way to scoring 14 points as he helped the Ragin’ Cajuns cruise to an 80-54 win over Texas State in the SBC quarterfinals.

Louisiana-Lafayette will play at 11:30 a.m. Saturday in the semifinals and will face UT-Arlington.

“It is a real confidence booster for me,” Miller said. “I have been battling injuries for about a month and half. But I have stayed ready and Coach (Bob) Marlin and teammates have confidence in me. Whatever I have to do to help the team win I will do it.”

“He has the green light,” said Marlin of his 6-foot-7, 250-pound forward. “I have always liked having my big guys step out and shoot threes because post players are sometimes lazy defensively,” laughed Marlin. “I would rather have the open three from a guy like Shawn Long, who made a 100 for me, or one from a player like Justin.”

Louisiana-Lafayette (27-5) found itself down early in the game as the shots weren’t falling as Texas State (15-18) took an early 5-4 lead.

“I was concerned coming into this game,” Marlin said. “We struggled on Senior Night against Little Rock. We could never get into an offensive rhythm. I have coached against Coach (Danny) Kasper a plenty of times and won a bunch of games that were in 50’s.

“When the score is 3-2 at around the 16-minute mark and we have missed two layups and thrown two passes away I was like ‘Oh no here it comes.’ But we got a couple in.”

Marlin inserted a few members of his second team unit and they delivered and helped the Cajuns go on a 26-4 run.

In addition to Miller, freshman Cedric Russell scored nine points, including going 3-of-4 from three-point range, and Jerekius Davis added 12 points coming off the bench.

In fact, all 13 players on the roster played in the game with not one player playing more than 29 minutes in the contest.

“We have a lot of faith in our bench,” Marlin said. “We can play big. We can play small. We are versatile and we are going to need that the rest of the tournament.”

Less than a week after losing in overtime at home to Little Rock, a game in which the Cajuns went 6-of-31 from three-point range, the Cajuns were far more efficient from beyond the arc as they shot 51.9 percent.

“I think it was the wakeup call that we needed,” said senior Frank Bartley who led all players with five three-pointers and a game-high 23 points. “I would rather lose at home than lose in the first round of the tournament.”