Men’s Basketball: Long powers Cajuns’ Sun Belt victory

Tim Buckley, Daily Advertiser, Jan. 12, 2014

Click here for photo gallery of Cajuns vs. Mavericks basketball game.

One really quick timeout and another a few minutes later in the opening half offered UL coach Bob Marlin all the opportunity he needed to remind his Ragin’ Cajuns of what would be important Saturday against UT Arlington.

His message: evidently heard and heeded.

UL rolled to a 90-70 win over the Mavericks in front of 2,731 at the Cajundome, improving to 10-5 overall and evening their Sun Belt Conference record to 1-1.

The Cajuns got a team-high 22 points and game-high nine rebounds from season scoring-leader Shawn Long, who didn’t start due to what a team spokesman called “performance in practice.”

Kasey Shepherd added 17 points and Elfrid Payton and Xavian Rimmer 12 apiece for UL, which plays host Monday night to Texas State in its second Sun Belt home game of 2013-14.

The Cajuns led by as many as 27 points after Shepherd hit two free throws to make it 71-44 with nine minutes and 28 seconds remaining.

UT Arlington (6-10, 1-3), which got a game-high 27 points that included 11-of-12 free-throw shooting from Lonnie McClanahan, did get to within as close as 15 a couple of times in the final two-and-a-half minutes, though.

“We had three empty possessions on offense in a row and a couple empty possessions on defense that allowed them to hang around more than I would have liked to have seen them hang around,” UL coach Bob Marlin said.

But the hanging really was complete in the opening half, when UT Arlington – playing without Sun Belt scoring-leader Reger Dowell, a transfer from Oklahoma State out with a thigh injury – had troubling staying in an up-and-down game.

“That kind of helped us a lot, him (Dowell) being out,” Rimmer said. “We didn’t have to worry about him as a scorer, so we just tried to protect the paint.”

“I don’t know that he would have been better than McClanahan,” Marlin added, “but he would have been another guy that would have scored the ball.”

UT Arlington jumped ahead 2-0 with a quick dunk by Brandon Edwards, and that prompted Marlin to call a 30-second timeout just 34 seconds into the game.

The topic of conversation, or more likely monologue: transition defense.

Said Marlin, according to Long: “Just protect the rim. We’ve got to pick it up on defense.”

“He just wanted, before it got out of hand, to let us know how hard we had worked on defense (in practice last week), and to try to have some carryover,” Long said.

All week, especially after getting beat on the boards by 10 in a Sun Belt-opening double-overtime loss at UL Monroe on Jan. 4, rebounding and especially boxing out where emphasized at practice.

“Since the ULM game … rebound, rebound, rebound,” Rimmer said.

Especially early on Saturday, Marlin figured the Cajuns needed to hear get back, get back, get back.

“We’ve got to run and guard the basket first,” he said, “and then get matched up.”

UL got its first bucket coming out of the first timeout off J.J. Davenport’s putback of a Payton miss, then really poured it on after a media timeout with 14:55 left in the first half and the Cajuns up 10-8. UL enjoyed an 11-0 run after the media timeout, part of greater 14-0 and 17-2 runs.

“After that (first timeout) I thought we played well the rest of the half,” Marlin said. “We shared the basketball, we made shots and our defense was outstanding. We were talking, we were covering their plays right.”

The Cajuns were up 45-27 by the break, when they had 20 deflections and the Mavs had 11 of their 15 turnovers.

Long, besides his 22 points and nine boards, also finished with a career-high seven blocks while Shepherd and Payton came up with three steals each. Long entered with 17:20 left in the first half, and Davenport started in his place.

“He had a poor practice the other day,” Marlin said of Long, the Sun Belt’s top rebounder. “J.J. (Davenport) really outplayed him in practice, and deserved the opportunity.

“It wasn’t done for motivation necessarily. It’s just he needs to play better. I mean, we need better production. He wasn’t productive in practice.”

Long suggested he understood.

“The decision Coach made, I respect it,” he said. “I believe every decision he makes is a positive decision for the team. … So when he told me, I just rolled with it.”

Coming off the bench for just the second time in his career, he rolled all the way to his 15th double-figure scoring outing in 15 games this season.

LAGNIAPPE: Usual starting power forward Elridge Moore returned to UL’s opening lineup after missing five straight games with a sprained ankle. The senior was scoreless with no rebounds in 13 minutes. “You can tell he hadn’t played in a while,” Marlin said. … UL shooting guard Bryant Mbamalu made his first start of the season. He came off the bench in his first two games after returning from a Jones foot fracture. Mbamalu finished with nine points Saturday on 3-of-3 shooting from behind the long-distance line, but he exited in the second half with apparent foot pain. Marlin said Mbamalu’s knee was bothering him too, and that his doctor would examine him. “He’s not moving well,” Marlin said, “but he did go 3-for-3.” … Long moved into fifth place among UL’s career blocks leaders with 112 and from 16th to 10th on its single-season list with 47 blocks this season. He previous career-high (six) came last weekend at ULM. … The last time UL got to double-digit wins so early was when they did it exactly 11 years previously in 2003, when they finished 20-10.