Men’s Basketball: Cajuns not done yet – Marlin, Cajuns not satisfied with NCAA bid

Tim Buckley, Daily Advertiser, March 18, 2014

How to watch UL game

Do you have a concern about watching the UL game on Friday? Stuck at work trying to figure out how to keep up with the game? Well here’s a quick guide to help you figure out how to watch the Ragin’ Cajuns play against Creighton in the NCAA Tournament.
The game will be on truTV on Friday approximately at 2:10 p.m. truTV is on Cox cable channel 51 and 1051 (high definition), LUS Fiber channel 80, DirecTV channel 246 and Dish channel 242 and 9430 (HD). Marv Albert, Steve Kerr and Craig Sager will have the call.
But if you can’t get to a TV, the game will be available online at www.ncaa.com/march-madness-live, but only if you have an account with the cable and satellite systems mentioned above. The Cajuns’ game will not be available to you if you don’t have one, but there is a free preview time period starting when you log onto the site.
To watch the game on your smartphone, March Madness Live also has apps for iPhone, Android and Windows Phone users as well.
On the radio side, the game will be broadcasted locally on the Ragin’ Cajuns Sports Network on 107.9 FM, but only on the radio, not online. The only way to listen online to the game will be through the national feed, which at www.westwoodonesports.com. The internet radio feed is for free.
– Chad Washington

The first day the UL basketball gathered as a team last fall, what it practiced had nothing to do with defense or conditioning or even scoring.

There was only one task coach Bob Marlin had in mind back then, and – eventually, as March rolled around – it was something with which the Ragin’ Cajuns wound up having to deal.

“We went and cut the nets down (at the Cajundome),” Marlin said Monday.

They worked, he suggested, on both getting up and down the ladder and making sure everyone gets a nip of the net before it finally comes down, among other things.

It was a mental exercise, too, to reinforce the possibilities that could be.

The power of positive thinking paid off, too.

In this case, however, practice apparently does not make perfect in all facets of celebrating success.

UL (23-11) faced the net-removal task after beating top-seeded Georgia State 82-81 in overtime to win the Sun Belt Conference Tournament on Sunday Lakefront Arena and win an automatic ticket to the NCAA Tournament, where in a West bracket game on Friday afternoon at the AT&T Center in San Antonio it will open play as a No. 14 seed against No. 3 seed Creighton of the Big East.

From Marlin’s perspective down below, the Cajuns failed – fairly miserably, actually, by the coach’s own estimation.

“I told them how to hold the scissors, which they didn’t do,” Marlin said.

More to the point, what UL did on the floor Sunday was plenty sharp enough to cut down the Panthers and climb up into the big dance.

“It was a great team effort,” the Cajun coach said.

Now Marlin wants more of the same.

“I know we’re gonna have a great week of practice,” he said.

“They’re excited. They’re gonna enjoy this opportunity, but we’ve got some competitors, and we’re gonna play until the final whistle. And we feel good about just going and playing.

“If we play our best,” Marlin added, “then we’ll have an opportunity to win.”

The UL coach really does believe that.

Now in the stretch run of his fourth season at UL after coaching a Sam Houston State team that he took the NCAA Tournament twice, Marlin really does think a Cajun club led by first team All-Sun Belt picks Elfrid Payton and Shawn Long along with senior starters Bryant Mbamalu and Elridge Moore and junior shooting guard Xavian Rimmer really does have more in it.

That’s especially the case after Mbamalu managed to win Most Outstanding Player honors at the tournament and Rimmer made the all-tourney team after scoring 24 in a second-round win over Texas-Arlington and a career-high 27 in the title game against Georgia State.

“We’re not done,” said Marlin, whose Cajuns have won 11 of their last 13 games, losing only close ones on road at Georgia State and Western Kentucky in that stretch. “We told the told guys (Sunday). We had a happy locker room, a happy bus. But we know what’s at stake.

“I mean, we’ve had a couple special players (in Payton and Long) and we’re playing really well as a team, and no one really cares who gets the credit.

“So we’re looking forward to going and playing well as a team, and giving ourselves an opportunity to score,” he added. “We led the league in scoring, and we can score the ball.”

They’re just not so good at the snipping.

Not yet, anyway.

LAGNIAPPE: UL didn’t even practice basketball Monday – basketball, or net-cutting. Instead, as they have the last couple weeks, Marlin said the Cajuns had one of their two-hour study hall “academic practice” sessions. … UL’s practice Thursday in San Antonio (12:45 until 1:25 p.m. central) will be open to the public. … According to the NCAA, UL was No. 57 in the tourney’s seed order