HOT SPRINGS, Ark. — Suspended point guard Raymone Andrews and power forward J.J. Thomas probably won’t be invited to return to the program for next season, UL coach Bob Marlin said shortly after his Ragin’ Cajuns were knocked out of the Sun Belt Conference Tournament with Sunday night’s quarterfinal-round loss to North Texas.

Andrews, UL’s usual starting point guard each of the past two seasons, and Thomas, the Cajuns’ top scorer a season ago, both were suspended for last Tuesday for what Marlin and the school deemed to be "conduct detrimental to the team."

"We haven’t made a decision on that yet," Marlin, when asked about the pair’s future, said with UL athletic director Scott Farmer standing nearby. "But more than likely they won’t be back — and it’s our choice."

Marlin again did not elaborate on the reasons why.

But he did suggest he liked the way his club reacted throughout the week that ensued, including a three-point loss to North Texas that went down to the wire.

"We’ve had a great week of practice," Marlin said. Two Cajun senior starters confirmed as much.

"I think we pulled together in practice this week, and it definitely helped us in the game," power forward Darshawn McClellan said. "It showed."

"This past week of practices I feel we all responded, and came together," swingman Josh Brown added. "These were the best practice we had the whole year, so I felt really good coming into this tournament. I thought we were gonna win it."

One-bid Sun Belt?

After dropping a recent reference to No. 1 seed and East Division-champ Middle Tennessee even before the tournament began, it’s evident Marlin felt the Sun Belt is a one-bid conference this season whether the 25-5 Blue Raiders won the title and its automatic NCAA tourney invite or not.

"It’s a totally new season, and to be honest nothing matters but this (tournament) in our league from an NCAA standpoint," the Cajuns coach said before coming to Hot Springs.

"Middle Tennessee’s had a great year," Marlin added. "Will they go to the NCAA tournament as an at-large bid? Probably not. So, it boils down to who is going to win this tournament."

As fate would have it, everyone will get to find out whether or not Marlin’s right. That’s because Middle Tennessee was upset Sunday night by Arkansas State, meaning MTSU’s only way into the tourney would be as an at-large bid.

Crowd count

A crowd of about 1,000 or so watched Sunday’s UL-North Texas game in the cozy, high school-like setting of Convention Center Court here, and perhaps fewer than 100 of them were Cajuns fans — with the most of the rest all green-clad Mean Green supporters.

Attendance at the Cajundome for the Cajuns’ final home game of the regular season, a loss to UL Monroe, meanwhile, was announced to be a season-high 5,075.

That marked just the second time this season that UL attracted an announced crowd of more than 4,000. The other: 4,125 against Arkansas-Little Rock, on Feb. 11.

The Cajuns wound up averaging 3,675 over 14 home games, which ranks fifth in the Sun Belt behind WAC-bound Denver (5,460), Middle Tennessee (5,035), North Texas (4,006) and Western Kentucky (3,993).

That’s down from an average of 3,919 in 2010-11 for UL.

Isiah Thomas-coached FIU drew the fewest among Sun Belt schools with an average of 1,071 over 11 games.

The conference average was 3,180.

Lagniappe

Cajuns senior shooting guard David Perez was honored prior to the game with the Sun Belt Commissioner’s academic award for having a grade-point average of 3.5 or higher. "» With Andrews and Thomas missing, Darnell Jackson logged 12 minutes as backup point behind Elfrid Payton and senior big man Scottie Farrington came off the bench for another nine minutes. "Everybody that played contributed," Marlin said. "» UL’s opening lineup had Payton at the point, joined by usual starter Bryant Mbamalu, Brown, McClellan and Kadeem Coleby.