They haven’t played since winning last Saturday at North Texas.

They are idle tonight, despite it being a Thursday, a usual evening of play for Sun Belt Conference teams.

And after closing their regular season this Saturday night at the Cajundome against UL Monroe, the UL Ragin’ Cajuns — thanks to a first-day bye — won’t play again until March 4 in the quarterfinal round of the Sun Belt tournament at Summit Arena in Hot Springs, Ark.

That’s one game in 14 days — a rather generous break, even coming off a two-game trip last week to both North Texas and Denver, that Cajuns coach Bob Marlin does not seem to mind a bit.

"That’s OK," said Marlin, whose 16-13 club is guaranteed the bye as one of the top five seeds among the Sun Belt’s 11 tourney-eligible teams.

"It gives us some time to rest," Marlin added, "and it gives us an opportunity to tweak some things and put in some new wrinkles and schemes for the tournament."

UL is not the only conference school that will enjoy such a lengthy layoff.

Denver — currently tied with UL for second place in the Sun Belt West Division at 10-5 behind leader UALR — also is off tonight, also has a first-day tournament bye and also will have just one game in 14 days.

Whether that’s an altogether-good thing or not, however, is subject to debate.

"The pro is that we get to rest up our bodies — heal up — and run over some things and clean up some things (in practice)," senior starter Darshawn McClellan said. "The con is that we come out, maybe, a little lackadaisical, because have been resting and we did miss a game."

One school of thought suggests the break may be a bit too long, and that it’s much better to go into the tournament with some sense of rhythm.

Nine Sun Belt teams that have a game tonight — South Alabama, Florida Atlantic, Troy, FIU, Arkansas State, Western Kentucky, North Texas, UALR and Middle Tennessee — will be playing for the third time in no more than 10 days once the tourney gets under way for them.

And none of them will have more than seven days between their final regular-season outing and the first tournament game. "A lot of people," Marlin said, "think if you are playing well you want to continue to play."

Not so for the Cajuns, who have won two of their last three, six of their last eight and eight of their last 11.

They evidently prefer the respite, especially after going to overtime in three of their last six games and after playing three of their previous five games on the road.

"I think it will help a lot, especially for the older guys," said Josh Brown, another senior starter. "It will give us a lot of rest, and we can practice on things we need to practice — get better, and have more time at it."

"As Darshawn (McClellan) said," Marlin added during his weekly media gathering Wednesday, "we’ll clean up some deficiencies we have try to make sure we sharpen our strengths, and also sharpen our weaknesses.’