Men’s Basketball: A grand finale – Mbamalu reaches 1,000 points in blowout win – photo gallery

Tim Buckley, Daily Advertiser, Mar. 3, 2014

In the locker room afterward, UL coach Bob Marlin attempted to get the game ball from Bryant Mbamalu so it could be formally presented at a later date.

Nothing doing.

“I tried to take it from him,” Marlin said, “and he wasn’t giving that up.”

Not after all he’d done with it Sunday.

Mbamalu scored a career-high 32 points and with a game-high 11 rebounds recorded his first career double-double en route to becoming the 42nd player in UL history to score at least 1,000 career points as the Ragin’ Cajuns routed South Alabama 102-74 in front of 3,487 on Senior Day at the Cajundome.

Shawn Long added a 20-point, 10-board double-double and Elfrid Payton – though limited to a season-low five points – recorded his school-record 185th career steal to help the Cajuns improve to 10-6 in Sun Belt Conference play.

“It’s a feeling I will never forget for the rest of my life,” Mbamalu, one of three Cajun seniors honored Sunday game with Elridge Moore and Braylon Lazare, said of reaching 1,000.

“You know, at UL we’ve had great players – Shawn Long, Elfrid Payton recently; Bo Lamar, all those great guys, Dean Church, a lot of great history. So it feels great to my name in there with those great players.”

Mbamalu, whose 32 came in 35 minutes, helped UL jump to a 52-27 halftime lead as the Cajuns won for the seventh time in their last eight outings and improved to 19-10.

“He just got off to a quick start for us,” Marlin said. “I thought he was aggressive. He was taking the ball, he was tying people up, he was rebounding, he made some tough baskets. Besides missing (four) free throws, I thought he played a great game.”

“I came out ready, firing off 3s at the beginning,” Mbamalu added, “and I remember (South Alabama standout Augustine) Rubit saying, ‘Man, this guy has 11 points in two minutes; man, let’s guard him.’ So I was feeling pretty good after that.”

Mbamalu, whose 11 boards matched his previous career-high, had 17 points and Long 16 as the Cajuns led comfortably at the half.

But Marlin wasn’t pleased.

“We lit into our guys pretty good at halftime, maybe caught ’em off-guard,” he said.

“Elfrid Payton hadn’t scored a point, and we felt like Shawn (Long) didn’t play well either, so we challenged all the guys, and we come out in the second half, and struggle a little bit early, missed some defensive assignments, turned it over probably 10 times quickly trying to do too much too quick.”

South Alabama, however, never got closer than 18 at 67-49 with 11 minutes and 35 seconds left, and the Cajuns stretched their advantage to as many as 30 when Mbamalu hit two free throws with 1:58 remaining.

The second freebie left Mbamalu right at 1,000.

With Payton and Long also reaching 1,000 earlier this season it put the trio in the same category as three others – Lamar, Roy Ebron and Payton Townsend in 1971-72; Graylin Warner, Dion Brown and Alonza Allen in 1983; and Michael Allen, Byron Starks and Tony Moore in 1993-94 – as teammates to all achieve the feat in the same season.

Hitting the plateau point, however, didn’t come easily for Mbamalu.

Marlin almost took him out at one less-than-ideal point in the second half.

“Coach Murphy said, ‘Don’t pull him, don’t sub for him,’ ” Marlin said of UL basketball operations director Michael Murphy.

“About that time he hit a corner 3, and the place went nuts,” Marlin added, “and I looked up at the score to see the time, and of course his (number) ‘0’ is the first one in the column … so it dawned on me that he was gonna get it.”

But there was still work to be done, and after Mbamlu hit 30 to get to 998 teammates tried to make it happen.

But first Mbamalu missed a 3-pointer. Then he drove, but missed. And finally he missed a short jumper.

“Right then the pressure was building, and my legs (were) getting a little weak,” Mbamalu said. “I kind of tweaked my ankle a little bit too, so it was like … a weight was bearing down on me.

“Then my teammates just said, ‘Slow down, it’s gonna come.’ ”

It did, after T.J. Johnson fouled Mbamalu to put him on the line.

With that, the senior from Houston’s Dulles High didn’t have to worry about going for 1,000 on the road.

UL is now third in the Sun Belt, half a game behind second-place Western Kentucky with two regular-season games – on Thursday night at WKU, one Saturday night at Arkansas State – remaining before the March 13-16 SBC Tournament in New Orleans.

“It means a lot,” Mbamalu said of taking care of personal and team business at home.

“You know, my teammates made a concerted effort to get me the ball, and the coaching staff made a concerted effort to get me the ball as well, so I have to tip my hat to those guys. They helped me out a lot.”

LAGNIAPPE: Lazare made his first career start on Senior Day and finished with four points and three rebounds in 13 minutes, prompting Marlin to call the contribution “awesome.” Lazare hadn’t played in 11 of UL’s last 15 games, and hadn’t played more than one minute since a Dec. 30 win over Central Methodist. … Payton’s record steal came off a Rubit turnover and resulted in a dunk that made it 67-45 UL with 12:39 left. … Big man Vieux Kande came off the bench to score seven points, marking the most he’s had since getting 10 against Centenary on Dec. 17. … UL shot 61.7 percent (37-of-60) from the field, including 66.7 percent (8-of-12) from 3-point range. South Alabama shot only 37.5 percent (21-of-56) from the field, prompting Marlin to credit UL’s defense – and especially its defensive rebounding – for the win. … With the loss, South Alabama was eliminated from contention for the eight-team Sun Belt tourney field.