02-19-2005, 06:14 PM
For a few seconds on Thursday night, Leonard Hopkins was the most popular person in the Sun Belt Conference for Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns.
Hopkins nailed a jump shot with 0.3 seconds remaining to lift North Texas over Denver 68-66 in Denton, dropping the Pioneers a game behind the Cajuns in the Western Division race with three games to play.
Then, of course, the Cajuns came back to earth and remembered that Hopkins and the Mean Green would be in the Cajundome tonight trying to spoil UL's Senior Night.
Since North Texas beat Denver, it has done something UL hasn't accomplished this season, adding another caution flag to tonight's home finale.
On the other hand, if the Cajuns play like they did in Thursday's 91-49 runaway over New Mexico State, it may not matter who the visitors are.
"I know we'll give tremendous effort," said UL coach Robert Lee, who will honor seniors Orien Greene, Brian Hamilton and Chris Cameron tonight.
"It's Senior Night, and it will be the last game for Orien and Brian, and could be the last for Dwayne Mitchell and Chris Cameron. It will be very difficult to see a group like that leave. They've had a lot of success here, and hopefully there's more to come."
The latest step in that legacy of success was Thursday's complete domination of New Mexico State, which brought the Cajuns (16-8, 10-2) a Sun Belt-record sixth straight league campaign with at least 10 wins.
"I thought we played a very good game against New Mexico State," Lee said. "Our defense and our offense were very good."
UL's defense was especially suffocating against NMSU, as the Cajuns forced 21 turnovers, had 9 steals, out-rebounded the Aggies 44-25 and held the visitors to 17-of-53 shooting.
"The last couple of games we've focused on defense a lot," said Greene, whose return from a broken leg has corresponded with the Cajuns' league-best performance in Sun Belt play.
UL's defense of 3-point shooting is characteristic of that surge. In this week's Sun Belt statistics, the Cajuns are last in the league in 3-point defense (36.4 percent), but against conference foes they lead the way at 30.6 percent. That was before Thursday's 4-of-16 by NMSU.
Greene played 33 minutes against New Mexico State and is looking more and more like he's returning to good health.
"I'd say I'm a good 80-85 percent with my leg right now," Greene said. "I just let it come to me, instead of trying to do too much."
Averaging 12.2 points per game, Greene has distributed 74 assists and has 50 steals and appears ready to lead UL back to the NCAA Tournament.
"We're clicking better now than we were earlier in the season," Greene said. "We just have to take one game at a time and keep playing together."
The constant for UL has been Hamilton, who seemingly is everywhere on the floor with 13.7 points per game, 7.8 rebounds, has 45 assists, 28 blocked shots and 61 steals in his second year with the program after transferring from Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
"Our confidence is up right now," said Tiras Wade, the Cajuns' scoring leader at 19.5 points per game. "Nobody likes it when we lose. When we lost to Denver, it was like a dagger. But we won right away in our next game and got back on track. "Having six straight (10-win Sun Belt seasons) definitely means we have tradition. We're working to get out of that shadow of (being) a mid-major program."
Hopkins nailed a jump shot with 0.3 seconds remaining to lift North Texas over Denver 68-66 in Denton, dropping the Pioneers a game behind the Cajuns in the Western Division race with three games to play.
Then, of course, the Cajuns came back to earth and remembered that Hopkins and the Mean Green would be in the Cajundome tonight trying to spoil UL's Senior Night.
Since North Texas beat Denver, it has done something UL hasn't accomplished this season, adding another caution flag to tonight's home finale.
On the other hand, if the Cajuns play like they did in Thursday's 91-49 runaway over New Mexico State, it may not matter who the visitors are.
"I know we'll give tremendous effort," said UL coach Robert Lee, who will honor seniors Orien Greene, Brian Hamilton and Chris Cameron tonight.
"It's Senior Night, and it will be the last game for Orien and Brian, and could be the last for Dwayne Mitchell and Chris Cameron. It will be very difficult to see a group like that leave. They've had a lot of success here, and hopefully there's more to come."
The latest step in that legacy of success was Thursday's complete domination of New Mexico State, which brought the Cajuns (16-8, 10-2) a Sun Belt-record sixth straight league campaign with at least 10 wins.
"I thought we played a very good game against New Mexico State," Lee said. "Our defense and our offense were very good."
UL's defense was especially suffocating against NMSU, as the Cajuns forced 21 turnovers, had 9 steals, out-rebounded the Aggies 44-25 and held the visitors to 17-of-53 shooting.
"The last couple of games we've focused on defense a lot," said Greene, whose return from a broken leg has corresponded with the Cajuns' league-best performance in Sun Belt play.
UL's defense of 3-point shooting is characteristic of that surge. In this week's Sun Belt statistics, the Cajuns are last in the league in 3-point defense (36.4 percent), but against conference foes they lead the way at 30.6 percent. That was before Thursday's 4-of-16 by NMSU.
Greene played 33 minutes against New Mexico State and is looking more and more like he's returning to good health.
"I'd say I'm a good 80-85 percent with my leg right now," Greene said. "I just let it come to me, instead of trying to do too much."
Averaging 12.2 points per game, Greene has distributed 74 assists and has 50 steals and appears ready to lead UL back to the NCAA Tournament.
"We're clicking better now than we were earlier in the season," Greene said. "We just have to take one game at a time and keep playing together."
The constant for UL has been Hamilton, who seemingly is everywhere on the floor with 13.7 points per game, 7.8 rebounds, has 45 assists, 28 blocked shots and 61 steals in his second year with the program after transferring from Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
"Our confidence is up right now," said Tiras Wade, the Cajuns' scoring leader at 19.5 points per game. "Nobody likes it when we lose. When we lost to Denver, it was like a dagger. But we won right away in our next game and got back on track. "Having six straight (10-win Sun Belt seasons) definitely means we have tradition. We're working to get out of that shadow of (being) a mid-major program."
(knock on wood)
