Men’s Basketball: Cowboys don UL jerseys for game

Men’s Basketball: Cowboys don UL jerseys for game

Men’s Basketball: Cowboys don UL jerseys for game

Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@theadvertiser.com

McNeese State’s players would have to think hard to come up with a worse indignity.
The Cowboy basketball team had to wear the University of Louisiana’s practice jerseys at the battle of the rivals Thursday night at Blackham Coliseum.

Because of a mix-up by Cowboy team managers, the team arrived at Blackham without game uniforms, and it didn’t get much better for the visitors all evening as the host Ragin’ Cajuns posted an 89-77 victory.

"It was pretty awkward," said McNeese coach Tic Price. "I was disappointed we weren’t thorough enough and didn’t pack right. Coach (Robert) Lee was kind enough to let us use some of his equipment."
"We’re lucky that we’ve never had that happen," Lee said. "We were going to let them use our road uniforms, but we realized that they had our names on the backs and that would have been very confusing. … That would have been too weird."

The game jerseys arrived late in the first half, but because the numbers didn’t match up the Cowboys had to use the Cajun practice gear the entire game.

The game was held up for five minutes to allow McNeese to sort out the gear, and then to get in a brief pregame warmup.

"We’re lucky that we’ve never had that happen," Lee said. "We were going to let them use our road uniforms, but we realized that they had our names on the backs and that would have been very confusing … (Michael) Southall guarding Southall, (Dwayne) Mitchell guarding Mitchell. That would have been too weird."

Originally published December 23, 2005