The Trojans didn’t figure on that coming back to bite them, but it did.

With Ragin’ Cajuns turning to small ball to slow Troy down late in the first half, Long hitting a big bucket early in the second half and senior Bryant Mbamalu scoring a season-high 21 points, UL rolled to a 78-63 win in front of 3,466 at the Cajundome.

It was the sixth straight victory for the 18-9 Cajuns, who improved to 9-5 in Sun Belt Conference play largely behind the offensive production of Mbamalu and 15 points apiece from Long and Elfrid Payton.

“My teammates were finding me,” said Mbamalu, who with four games remaining in UL’s regular season and at least one Sun Belt Tournament game to be played is now 51 points shy of joining Payton and Long among the now-41 players in Cajun history with at least 1,000 career points.

“I was trying to be real active on the offensive glass, and just be active with my hands, then my teammates were finding me for some good looks.”

One minutes and 20 seconds after Long’s 15-foot jumper to open the second half extended UL’s 31-22 halftime lead to 11 points, a layup by Long off a missed Mbamalu trey try gave UL a 37-27 lead that never again dipped below double digits.

“It was a big lift,” Cajuns coach Bob Marlin said of the first second-half shot by Long, who finished 7-of-8 from the field.

“That felt good to hit the jumper, to get me back in rhythm after sitting the whole half,” added Long, who after picking up two early fouls played just five minutes and scored only two points in the first half.

With 8:53 to go, J.J. Davenport’s layup game UL a 14-point lead at 61-47.

Mbamalu immediately stole the in-bounds pass and scored to push the Cajun advantage to 16, one off the game-high 17 it reached after a Kevin Brown free throw in the final minute.

“That was fun, actually,” Mbamalu said of the baseline nab, something he said he did a lot in high school back in Houston but never in college.

A large part of Troy’s game plan Thursday night was to go at UL big man Shawn Long and try to sit him down early with foul trouble.

The Trojans didn’t figure on that coming back to bite them, but it did.

With Ragin’ Cajuns turning to small ball to slow Troy down late in the first half, Long hitting a big bucket early in the second half and senior Bryant Mbamalu scoring a season-high 21 points, UL rolled to a 78-63 win in front of 3,466 at the Cajundome.

It was the sixth straight victory for the 18-9 Cajuns, who improved to 9-5 in Sun Belt Conference play largely behind the offensive production of Mbamalu and 15 points apiece from Long and Elfrid Payton.

“My teammates were finding me,” said Mbamalu, who with four games remaining in UL’s regular season and at least one Sun Belt Tournament game to be played is now 51 points shy of joining Payton and Long among the now-41 players in Cajun history with at least 1,000 career points.

“I was trying to be real active on the offensive glass, and just be active with my hands, then my teammates were finding me for some good looks.”

One minutes and 20 seconds after Long’s 15-foot jumper to open the second half extended UL’s 31-22 halftime lead to 11 points, a layup by Long off a missed Mbamalu trey try gave UL a 37-27 lead that never again dipped below double digits.

“It was a big lift,” Cajuns coach Bob Marlin said of the first second-half shot by Long, who finished 7-of-8 from the field.

“That felt good to hit the jumper, to get me back in rhythm after sitting the whole half,” added Long, who after picking up two early fouls played just five minutes and scored only two points in the first half.

With 8:53 to go, J.J. Davenport’s layup game UL a 14-point lead at 61-47.

Mbamalu immediately stole the in-bounds pass and scored to push the Cajun advantage to 16, one off the game-high 17 it reached after a Kevin Brown free throw in the final minute.

“That was fun, actually,” Mbamalu said of the baseline nab, something he said he did a lot in high school back in Houston but never in college.

Fun as well for Mbamalu had to be scoring off a Payton in-bounds to make it 65-50 with 6:29 left as the Cajun maintained their comfy second-half advantage.

That lead came thanks largely from a strong defensive effort late in the opening half by the Cajuns, who trailed by as many as six points in the first six minutes.

Going into a media timeout with 7:24 left in the first half, Troy’s lead stood at five points at 18-13.

But when Payton hit a follow bucket off a Davenport miss with 40 seconds to go before halftime, the Cajuns led by 12 at 31-19.

Only a Tevin Calhoun 3-pointer with four seconds left before the break kept the Cajuns from holding Troy to no field goals in the final 7:52 of the opening half.

That’s 7:48 with only free throw made, a span in which Troy shot just 0-for-5 from the field and had four turnovers.

UL, meanwhile, scored 18 points in that same 7:48 – and it all happened while Long was sitting with foul issues, just like Troy wanted.

For part of the stretch, big man Davenport was in the floor.

But for the rest, undersized power forward Elridge Moore was UL’s biggest player on the floor and the Cajuns loaded up with various combinations of guards Payton, Brown, Mbamalu, Xavian Rimmer and Hayward Register (who had nine points on three big 3-pointers, all in the opening half).

The small-ball worked.

Mbamalu, who scored 15 of his 21 points in the second half, finished the night with a career-high four steals and Payton had one.

“The most obvious statement by anyone tonight, but that (7:48 stretch) was the difference in the game,” said Troy coach Phil Cunningham, whose Trojans – coming off an upset win over Sun Belt-leader Georgia State – fell to 9-16, 4-9. “They’ve got tough, physical, athletic guys in the perimeter, and they can bring a lot of them.

“When they made that adjustment, shoot, we had trouble getting the ball from Point A to Point B against their athleticism on the perimeter.”

UL allowed Troy just 38.9 percent shooting from the field, including only 31.8 percent in the first half and 29.2 percent (7-of-24) overall from 3-point range.

“This is the fourth defensive effort in a row,” Marlin said, “that’s been really strong here at home.”

After facing Georgia State on the road on Saturday night, UL plays its final regular-season home game on March 2 against South Alabama.

The Cajuns are now 12-2 this season in the Cajundome – their most wins at home since the 2001-02 season.