Men’s Basketball: My 5 favorite Blackham Coliseum experiences

Kevin Foote, The Advertiser, March 25, 2015

UL students participate in Yell Like Hell, a homecoming week pep rally, Wednesday night at Blackham Coliseum. By Leslie Westbrook October 21, 2009

With the news that the UL Ragin’ Cajuns men’s basketball team will actually be playing in Blackham Coliseum against Evansville on Thursday in the quarterfinal round of the CIT, I couldn’t help but think back to my junior high, high school and early college memories of games at Blackham Coliseum.

I decided to come up with my personal five most memorable.

This isn’t my list of five best games or even the five most significant – just the ones that stick out the most in my mind of the games I attended.

Also, I’m going to apologize in advance to all of you who were older than during the Beryl Shipley glory days. I know my parents brought me to many of those games, but I was too young to remember the details.

This one was a very welcomed surprise. It was the first round of the NIT.

You know how many around the country felt when UCLA got an at-large berth in the NCAA Tournament a few weeks ago? Well, that’s how McNeese State fans felt in March of 1985.

The Cowboys had swept UL in the regular season and had an 18-10 record. The Cajuns were 16-13 and had just lost five straight games to end the regular season, including an 87-86 loss at McNeese State.

But the Cajuns had just went to the NIT Final Four the year before and to the NCAA Tournament the two seasons before that.

So before 7,300-plus fans at Blackham, the Gators hosted Norm Stewart’s Florida Gators, led by the fantastic backcourt of Andrew Moten and Vernon Maxwell.

The Cajuns led 39-35 at the half, but found themselves up just one at 65-64 in the final seconds with the Gators one bucket away from victory.

In my traditional spot of standing right behind the official scorer, to increase my chances of the officials hearing my opinion of their calls as they reported fouls, I just couldn’t watch.

Florida put up a shot that bounced off the rim, but Moten got the rebound. Seemingly with a clear shot at a putback, I turned away and just looked at the Red Dot student section behind the Cajun bench.

As they leaped to celebrate Moten’s miss, I got the message and began running around the court in total elation.

I, of course, stopped to ask KPLC news reporter Tom Woodard from Lake Charles if he enjoyed the game. Perhaps at that moment, both Woodard understood why the NIT committee went against logic and put the Cajuns in.

For the record, Cedric Hill led the Cajuns with 22 points.

Also, we won’t even discuss the next game. It wasn’t in Blackham anyway.

The year before that memorable Florida game was a quite memorable NIT Final Four run.

After a great 94-92 road win at Utah State, thanks to 31 points from Graylin Warner, was this electric atmosphere night at Blackham in the second round.

The ending wasn’t quite as dramatic, but the game itself would be difficult to beat.

I remember sitting pretty high up in the ‘S’ section at Blackham for the game, and just loving every second of this topsy-turvy, double-overtime classic that I sense many Cajun fans underrate when they list the best UL games at Blackham.

The game was tied at 60-all after regulation and 64-64 after the first overtime in front of over 8,400 fans at Blackham.

This time, Warner only scored six points, but one of his buckets tied the game at 64-64 with six seconds left, and his final one gave the Cajuns the lead in overtime.

Alonza Allen had a memorable dunk with 2:02 left in regulation to tie the game for the 22^nd time at that juncture and eventually force overtime.

Drexal Allen finished with a career-high 22 points, including four big free throws in the final 92 seconds to sew up the win.

It was UL’s return to postseason basketball.

Mom dropped me and my two oldest brothers off on Johnston Street and we witnessed history that night, sitting in the end zone seats on the Fatima side of Blackham.

About seven years after Sports Illustrated identified the Cajuns as one of the few teams in America that could possibly beat all-powerful UCLA, the Cajuns were meeting the UAB Blazers, coached by former Bruins’ head coach Gene Bartow.

It was amazingly followed four days later by another great last-second shot in Austin, Texas – that one from point guard Carl Jordan – but that one just doesn’t seem to have the staying power that Dion Rainey’s last-second bomb from the left corner has enjoyed over the years.

Craig Monroe only scored two points in the game, but had the big steal to set up Rainey’s heroics. Wayne Julien was actually the leading scorer with 23 points and Toney had 21.

But when you say ‘Dion Rainey’ to any longtime Cajun hoops fan, their mind goes immediately to UAB on this magical night.

This may not be one that immediately rings a bell for you, but I just loved this game.

For starters, what self-respecting UL basketball fan in those days didn’t hate Billy Tubbs and the Lamar Cardinals?

I have no idea how or why it happened, but the ticket I got for this grudge match ended up being smack dab in the middle of a Lamar fan contingent.

So I was a skinny 13-year-old kid sitting next to two Lamar students and we spent much of the game debating over which guard would end up being the better NBA player – UL’s Andrew Toney or Lamar’s Mike Olliver.

As it turned out, I won both the game that night and the argument as soon as Olliver was cut by his final NBA club without playing a single regular-season game.

To be fair, both were great college players. Just take a peek at the all-time scoring leader list in Southland Conference history: 1. Bo Lamar (3,493), 2. Joe Dumars, McNeese (2,607), 3. Andrew Toney, UL (2,526) and 4. Mike Olliver (2,518).

Olliver was drafted 32^nd overall in the second round of the 1981 NBA Draft by the Chicago Bulls, before being traded to Indiana. Again, he never played in a regular season game.

Toney was the 8^th overall pick by Philadelphia in 1980 and only played eight years due to injuries, but finished with 7,458 points and won an NBA Championship with the Sixers.

Again, this is one that may be off the radar of many Cajun fans.

For starters, I was always a little fascinated with the Warriors program since the mid-1970s going back to Al McGuire, Bo Ellis, Jerome Whitehead, Butch Lee and those unique uniforms.

Fast-forward to the 1980s and the Cajuns had beaten Doc Rivers and the Warriors in Alaska in 1981 and then got crushed at the Mecca in Milwaukee to close out the regular season in 1983.

This was the revenge game for that debacle. Rivers was gone, but Dwayne Johnson, Marc Marotta and Tom Copa had returned under first-year head coach Ric Majerus.

The Cajuns, who later dominated Xavier McDaniel and Wichita State in Blackham later that season, got the best of Marquette that night.

The performance of the team and the fans made quite an impression on Marquette, whose beat writer wrote glowing words about the atmosphere at Blackham and Majerus later ranked it among the top 10 toughest places to play in the country.

* * * * * * * * * *

Athletic Network Footnote by Ed Dugas

Click below for the video depicting the Blackham historical highlights and attend the game to view the new highlights in person.

“Tributes to Blackham” 1985 by KLFY and KATC TV (2 sections) posted by Jay Walker, ESPN 1420

Bobby Paschal coached the Cajuns in 1984-85, the team’s last season in Blackham and continued as our coach in 1985-86, his last year at USL and the Cajuns first season playing in the Cajundome.

Click here for the story by Dan McDonald in The Advertiser on Dec. 23, 2005 entitled, "The Red vs. White Game" when McNeese forgot their uniforms and wore the Cajuns’ red ones.

Players and coaches whose teams played at Blackham will be recognized at half-time of the game.