Men’s Basketball: Long leads Cajuns in dramatic overtime win

The Advertiser, February 2, 2016

 

Shawn Long making a big play as UL takes on ULM in the Cajundome.(Photo: SCOTT CLAUSE, THE ADVERTISER)

 

 

With UL Monroe holding an 11-point lead with just over 10 minutes left Tuesday night at the Cajundome, Warhawk standout Majok Deng was looking for an exclamation point to lock up his team’s fourth straight win over UL’s Ragin’ Cajuns.

But Deng went for a reverse dunk instead of an easy layup and clanged it off the rim, the Cajuns rebounded, and over the next six minutes UL outscored the Warhawks 19-4.

That made it close enough for a Cajun standout to take over down the stretch, and Shawn Long literally powered UL in the closing minutes to a 72-65 overtime victory to run the current win streak to seven games.

Long, the reigning Sun Belt and LSWA Player of the Week, finished with 28 points and 17 rebounds — 13 of those boards in the second half — and scored eight of UL’s last 10 points including a driving dunk and four free throws in the overtime period.

“For him to come back and reach another gear, that was impressive,” Cajun coach Bob Marlin said of Long. “I didn’t sub him out in the first half, and early in the second half, he was winded, but he got every rebound late in the game.”

Deng, who had 30 points in ULM’s 81-70 home win over the Cajuns back on Dec. 3, was held to 13, and had only two points in the second half. Those came on a pair of free throws with 21.8 seconds left that tied the game at 64, and UL missed a chance to win at the regulation buzzer when Kasey Shepherd had a winning 3-pointer bounce off the iron.

Long had 22 points and 10 rebounds at that point, recording his 67th career double-double and his ninth in 11 Sun Belt Conference games. In the overtime, the Morgan City senior had a staggering seven boards, outrebounding ULM single-handedly 7-3 in the extra period, and had a key block in the final 30 seconds when it was still a three-point game.

“That’s the games you live for,” Long said. “Coach give me a number (of rebounds) every game, and if i don’t get it I take it personally. At one point I had like, five, and he kind of got on me.”

The eighth 15-plus rebound game for Long this season helped the Cajuns take a commanding 52-30 board advantage over ULM, which entered the game third in the conference in rebound margin (�3.7). Johnathan Stove added a career-high seven rebounds to go with 13 points.

“Coach told me to be aggressive before the game and at halftime,” Stove said. “I try to contribute any way I can, but when I’m aggressive, everything flows better.”

The win was Marlin’s 100th since taking over the Cajun program, but more importantly it kept UL (12-8, 8-3 Sun Belt) close to the league lead just past the mid-point of the Sun Belt season. The two teams closest to the Cajuns, league-leading Little Rock (9-1) and Arkansas State (6-4) both come to the Cajundome next week after UL’s quick Thursday road trip to Appalachian State.

The game was tied six times in the first half after ULM spurted out to an early 11-4 lead, thanks mostly to back-to-back three pointers by Jamaal Samuel. He had five of the Warhawks’ eight treys, including one two minutes into the second half that gave ULM a 36-34 lead.

While the Cajuns were mired in a 1-for-8 shooting slump over an eight-minute stretch, the Warhawks built their edge to 50-39 on Samuel’s final trey. Justin Roberson, who led ULM with 21 points, had a driving basket with 10:46 left that kept it an 11-point game at 52-41, and after a UL turnover ULM had a chance to increase it when Deng drove for what appeared to be an uncontested layup.

His attempt at a two-hand reverse dunk hit the rim, and Stove had three free throws and Shepherd a layup off a steal in the next 90 seconds. Jay Hedgeman’s trey, a Shepherd drive and four straight free throws by Long — coupled with a four and one-half minute scoreless drought by ULM — gave the Cajuns a 55-54 lead. Hayward Register then hit a trey at the 5:04 mark and then stripped Deng and went coast-to-coast for a layup that made it 60-54.

“We knew we were going to make a run,” Stove said. “It wasn’t anything we weren’t doing early, we just weren’t playing hard enough. Late in the game, we said if we were going to win a championship, we need to win games like this.”

ULM didn’t go away, even after Long’s dunk off an offensive rebound made it 62-56 with 1:38 showing. DeMondre Harvey and Roberson each converted natural three-point plays in the next 45 seconds to tie the game at 62, and after Bryce Washington’s wide-open layup on a Long pass made it a two-point game, Deng was fouled and hit the free throws that forced overtime.

In 25 second-half minutes, Deng was 0-for-8 from the field, had one rebound and two turnovers. He was one of three ULM players that played the full 45 minutes, with the Warhawks only putting six players on the floor all evening.

“He’s a hell of a player,” Long said of Deng. “If we let him get too comfortable and get going, we knew it would be a long night. But everybody played tough defense on him all night.”

“Some of our guys were playing well so we left them out there for a while, longer than we normally do,” Marlin said. “But they had the three guys play 45 minutes, and that played a little into our hands. They missed some shots late that they usually make.”