Men’s Basketball: End of an era? Today’s WKU matchup may begin rivalry’s stretch drive – top 5 gam

Tim Buckley, Daily Advertiser, Jan. 25, 2014

The first meeting was Jan. 5, 1934, when Western Kentucky came to Lafayette and won 34-31.

Jay Walker did not call that one.

But the UL basketball team’s longtime radio play-by-play man was on hand for the genesis of the real rivalry between the Ragin’ Cajuns and the Hilltoppers, and he remembers it like last season.

It was Jan. 11, 1992 – the fifth game between the two teams that have met regularly since, but the first since 1971, and UL’s first season after leaving the American South for the Sun Belt Conference, to which WKU already belonged.

“Michael Allen hit a 30-footer at the buzzer to win it (79-76) for the Cajuns,” Walker recalls, “and turned around fired six guns at the Western Kentucky bench.”

And now the long-running feud between the Hilltoppers and the Cajuns is about to be dead.

NCAA conference realignment has killed it.

When WKU visits UL this afternoon for an ESPN2-televised game at the Cajundome, it will do so as a member of the Sun Belt Conference for its final season before jumping this summer to Conference USA.

Don’t expect the two scheduling friendly non-conference games anytime soon, either.

“Western’s a good team, and this is probably the last time we’re gonna play them, since they’re moving,” said UL point guard Elfrid Payton, who had a vital part in the one of the wackiest Cajun-Hilltopper games ever. “So, it’s gonna be a big game.”

“I’m disappointed they left the conference,” Cajuns coach Bob Marlin added. “But, you know, to each their own.”

There have been a lot of good ones between UL and WKU over the last couple of decades. But it evidently all started in earnest when Allen drained his trey.

Eric Mouton, now boys basketball coach and athletic director at Ascension Episcopal School in Youngsville, was a Cajun senior in that 1991-92 season.

Coming out of a late timeout in the ’92 game, then-UL coach Marty Fletcher reminded Mouton that the Cajuns had one more timeout left.

“I think if he (doesn’t) mention that to me, I don’t call it,” Mouton said. “But there was a mad scramble, and we were going out of bounds, and I’m standing next to a referee, and I called timeout, and the referee blows his whistle.

“Western Kentucky thinks they’re getting the ball, (but) he gives us the timeout, and we keep the ball – and the next thing you know there’s only a few seconds left, and Michael Allen drains the bomb right there.”

Mouton doesn’t admit today to remembering Allen firing any pretend six-shooters at the Hilltoppers. But he absolutely believes it when Walker says Allen’s 3 fell from 30.

“Man, let me tell you what, Michael Allen had 30-foot range,” he said. “So it was deep. It wasn’t just at the 3-point line. … I’d say 25 or 30. … And it was nothing but net, too. Nothing but net.”

One year after Allen’s 3, the Cajuns were home again and protecting a three-point lead in the waning seconds when a Hilltopper stole the ball.

“The guy forgot what the score was,” Walker said, “and he went and dunked it in at the buzzer and he started jumping up and down because he thought he had forced overtime.”

Oops.

The “guy” was Darnell Mee, who played 40 games for the NBA’s Denver Nuggets before embarking on a lengthy international career that had him starring in Australia.

Later in the mid-1990s, when Mouton was a Cajun assistant coach for three seasons, UL and WKU were getting deeper into a rivalry that really was becoming fun.

It wasn’t due to proximity on any map, though.

It was because both were really good.

“It was a big-time game for us to go up there, and a great atmosphere,” Mouton said. “They’ve had some good coaches go through there, and that was one of the games we would always look forward to.

“They had a great arena, they had a great fan base. It was always rowdy up there. And we were always in the mix for a championship, so every time we’d play them, whether here or there, it was a battle.

“It was one of those games both teams were ready for,” he added. “Both teams knew it was gonna be a hard-fought, and a tough, basketball game. That’s what rivalries are all about.”

For four straight years from 1992 through 1995, either the Cajuns or Hilltoppers were Sun Belt Tournament champs and went to the NCAA Tournament – including 1994, when UL won it but both danced.

“Maybe the biggest game of all was in 1994, because Western Kentucky had won the two games during the regular season,” Walker said. “The (SBC) tournament was in Bowling Green, and the final was a six-point game (78-72 to secure NCAA berth).”

After a lull from 1996 through 1999, things warmed up again.

Either UL or WKU won the Sun Belt Tournament and went to the NCAA Tournament for each of six consecutive years from 2000 through 2005.

“I think that’s really what fueled it,” Walker said. “It’s one thing to play close games with teams when neither one of you are contending, but when it means postseason play or it means a championship or it means a top seed, and it happened so many years in a row, that’s when a rivalry really becomes heated.

“I think it’s all about winning. Conferences nowadays are pretty geographically spread out, and your rival – if you’re good and they’re good – is the team you’re playing for championships.

“The Cajuns’ big rivalry in baseball has always been South Alabama; probably always will be,” he added. “In basketball, it happens to be Western Kentucky.”

It wasn’t exactly Hatfields and McCoys, since one was is from the hills but the other from the swamp.

But things really did get intense between the Hilltoppers and Cajuns in the early-to-mid 2000s.

“There was the game the Cajuns won in Bowling Green where they got down on one knee at midcourt, and then got up and put their hands in the middle, and then kind of jumped up and down,” Walker said. “Dennis Felton, the coach at Western Kentucky (from 1998-2003) milked the ‘They danced on our court’ card for about four years straight.

“And the next time the Cajuns won up there (in 2004) they kneeled down again at midcourt, and it just happened that it was squeeze-bottle night, and squeeze bottles started flying out of the crowd toward midcourt. And when they were done praying, they just got up and left.”

Ex-Cajun Brad Boyd, who now coaches Ascension Episcopal’s girls basketball team, experienced the aftermath of that first midcourt jig.

He was one of those pelted by plastic at the end of a 110-102 win at WKU’s E.A. Diddle Arena.

“We hated them and they hated us,” Boyd said. “Their fans tried to label us, ‘The Dancing Thugs.’ ”

Late in February 2003, the Cajuns were riding a 21-game home win streak.

But WKU visited, and pesky point Patrick Sparks – who wound up transferring and playing his final two seasons at Kentucky, then taking his game to Europe – hit a 3-pointer with 1:36 left to end it.

Flash forward to early January of 2012.

With 21 seconds remaining in overtime at WKU and the game tied at 70, the Cajuns unknowingly came out of a timeout with six men on the floor.

No one noticed.

It stayed that way as current Cajun point Payton drove for the winning layup with six seconds to go, and even as things got crazy after time had expired the UL win stood up.

The college basketball world was abuzz for the next few days over what had happened.

But with no conference title or NCAA Tournament implications involved, it was – at least for play-by-play announcer Walker – just another entry into the zany series that WKU leads 24-16.

“Can you imagine if first place had been on the line and that had happened?” Walker asked.

But since it was not, he added, “It’s just, ‘OK, this is one more thing to add to it.’ ”

Sadly for some, there may only be a few more additions.

Western Kentuckycomes into today’s game 12-7.

UL, which has won two of the last five meetings in the series but also lost nine of the last 11, is 12-7 as well.

The two teams will meet again when the Cajuns travel to WKU for their final Sun Belt game at E.A. Diddle on March 6, and they conceivably could play in the March 13-16 Sun Belt Tournament in New Orleans as well.

But there seems to be little likelihood of any non-conference games between the two in seasons soon to come.

“I didn’t even think about it will be the last time they come here,” Cajun coach Marlin said earlier this week. “But they’ll never be back, I can tell you that. … That’s my opinion.”

“I don’t think either one of the coaches,” Walker added with reference to Marlin and WKU’s Ray Harper, “wants to play the other.”

Walker explains why he believes that.

It’s partly because non-conference meetings simply won’t mean as much to the rivalry, and also because so many non-conference games are scheduled with likely victories in mind.

“And if you’re gonna play a team that could conceivably beat you, you want it to be a team with more of a name ,” Walker said. “So I don’t think the coaches are excited about continuing.

“I really believe there’s a point in time where our paths are gonna cross again. But it probably won’t be for a few years.”

Should UL ever make the jump to Conference USA, like WKU will and former Sun Belt members North Texas, Middle Tennessee, Florida Atlantic and Florida International recently did, the rivalry might some day be renewed.

“I think it’s a little bit of a damper,” Mouton said.

“It’s kind of a bummer,” Walker added. “I think it’s a shame, because I think the fans always look forward to games between the Cajuns and the Hilltoppers.”

They do, many largely because of one fatal shot that started it all.

“That first game, when Michael (Allen) hit that 3-pointer to beat, ’em – that kind of maybe rubbed them the wrong way,” Mouton said. “I think they kind of felt the timeout shouldn’t have been a timeout. Maybe they fell a little bit cheated there.

“And from there on out, they wanted to kick our butts every time, and we wanted to kick their butts, and we were always playing for something. So, when that happens, it makes for a helluva game.”

RAGIN’ CAJUNS BASKETBALL

WHEN: 3 p.m.
WHERE: Cajundome (11,500).
RECORDS: WKU 12-7, 4-2; UL 12-7, 3-3.
TV: ESPN2 with Rich Hollenberg (play-by-play) and ex-Central Connecticut coach Mark Adams (analysis)
RADIO: KPEL (1420 AM) and KHXT (107.9 FM) with Jay Walker
LEADING SCORERS: UL – Sophomore F/C Shawn Long (20.6 points per game); WKU – Junior G T.J. Price (17.2 ppg)

Top 5 UL vs. WKU Thrillers

There’s no really good way to really narrow down all the great game between the Cajuns and the Hilltoppers over the past 22 years, but here’s one version of the top five:
1. UL 79, WKU 76 – Jan. 11, 1992This was the birth of the modern era of this rivalry, which actually goes back to 1934, and it started out with a bang. The highly-touted Hilltoppers were the powers of this new Sun Belt league, while the Cajuns were coming over from the American South. WKU jumped out to a huge early lead. But sharp-shooting guard and Kentucky native Michael Allen put on a shooting exhibition the rest of the way in a 26-point performance for the comeback win, getting a little creative timeout from high-flying Eric Mouton along the way. Byron Starks had 13 and Cedric Mackyeon 11.
2. UL 110, WKU 102 – Jan. 29, 2004This one was just loaded with fun. The Cajuns snapped WKU’s Sun Belt-record 29-game home conference win streak – which ironically began after a UL win at Diddle Arena on Jan. 20, 2000 – while shooting a season-high 64 percent from the field as a team. Antoine Landry scored a career-high 27 points, followed by Brian Hamilton with 22 and Brad Boyd with 19. Six Cajuns scored in double figures before getting pelted with water bottles from the Hilltopper faithful after the game. Anthony Winchester scored 40 in the loss.
3. UL 84, WKU 83 – Jan. 21, 1993If that 1992 win the Cajundome didn’t do enough to get Cajun fans excited about WKU coming to town, this one did. Amazingly, UL’s leading scorers were almost identical as the year before with Allen exploding for 28, followed by Starks with 13 and Mackyeon with 12. The memorable aspect of this contest was Darnell Mee thinking he had tied with game with a dunk at the buzzer, only to realize that the Cajuns had just won by a single point.
4. UL 78, WKU 72 – March 8, 1994With apologies to the NCAA upset of Oklahoma in 1992, this might have been the best performance of the Marty Fletcher era. After losing to WKU 78-62 and 91-87 in the regular season, the Cajuns delivered a dominating road upset of the Toppers in the Sun Belt Tournament finals before a crowd of 10,878 at WKU’s Diddle Arena to earn the NCAA berth. The Cajuns led by eight early, by three at the half and then built up a 13-point lead in second half before holding off a late WKU charge. Starks led the way with 23, followed by Allen with 17 and Tony Moore with 15.
5. UL 72, WKU 70 – Jan. 5, 2012This one was just so bizarre, it just needed to be on the list. Other than the NCAA-clinching win in 1994, it certainly received more national attention than any of these games. Freshman guard Elfrid Payton drove to the basket for the game-winning basket to win at Diddle Arena. The big issue is that the possession that begin with an in-bounds pass after a timeout with 21 seconds left took place with UL having six men on the court. No one on the court appeared to have noticed until it was too late.

THE CAJUNS: UL has lost two of its last three and 4-of-8, including Thursday night’s 77-70 home loss to Sun Belt-leader Georgia State. … The Cajuns’ eight-game home win streak ended Thursday. … PG Elfrid Payton leads the SBC in assists (6.1) and steals (2.5) per game. … UL top-scorer Shawn Long leads the league in rebounds (10.6) and blocks (10.8) per game. … UL’s last win over WKU came on the road in overtime on Jan. 5, 2012.
THE OPPONENT: Western Kentucky has won two straight and seven of its last 10, including Thursday night’s 69-51 win at UL Monroe. … Leading rebounder George Fantt (7.4 boards per game) also is the Hilltoppers’ No. 2 scorer at 12.9 ppg. … The Toppers shooting just 41.1 percent from the field, which ranks 316th in the nation. … Coach Ray Harper is 43-31 in his third season at WKU. … Western Kentucky leads the all-time series 24-16.