First of all, let me say that Hot Springs is a great place to hold the Sun Belt tournament. Here in year two, the city seems to be getting behind it. The city fathers certainly are. Next year is the end of the three year agreement. I think the conference needs to start work now to extend that agreement. I truly believe if the tournament stays here it will eventually become an event.
We haven't had a neutral site tournament since Biloxi in the early 90's. The atmosphere at a neutral site tournament is so much better than at a campus site. Now we need for fans of schools to start making the tournament a priority. Middle Tennessee, Western Kentucky and Arkansas State get it. North Texas has a nice showing. Even Denver is starting to respond. The attendance from the three Louisiana schools is almost as bad as the Florida Schools. And, when you get right down to it, Cajuns fans have never really embraced the conference tournament even when the team was doing well. And yet, everyone wants to talk about our "proud basketball tradition." Hmmmmm.....
The tournament got off to a rousing start with #12 UNO's come from behind emotional win over FAU in women's action. Lots of tears shed at the end of that one. UNO lives another day. There was one other upset as #10 North Texas knocked off #7 FIU. The UL women fell behind, rallied back to a four point deficit with :14 left, but was ousted by South Alabama. By the way, don't expect a change in coaches on the women's side.
On the men's side, both FAU and Arkansas State limped to the finish line and I wonder if starting three freshmen had something to do with it. FAU shot just 25 percent in their loss to South Alabama and looked nothing like the team that had played so well during the season. And, the Red Wolves, quite frankly, were lucky to get past #12 UALR in overtime. Arkansas State isn't a good free throw shooting team, but hey, if you get to shoot nearly 60 of them. you'll probably make enough to win.
UNO's men weren't as fortunate as the women. They trailed Western Kentucky by just six at halftime before falling hard to the Hilltoppers. It was touching when it was over to hear the band play "Let's Hear it for UNO" one last time as the Privateers left the court for the final time as members of the Sun Belt Conference.
The Cajuns game against ULM was one of the toughest losses I've experienced in the more than 25 years covering the Cajuns on radio and TV. Playing with eight scholarship players, I saw Sun Belt Player of the Year Tyren Johnson in pain toward the end of the first half. The report was a rib injury, listed as questionable to return for the second half. But Johnson played and played as well as he could. Every time the whistle blew, you could see Johnson double over in pain. It was one of the more courageous performances I've seen...maybe ever. The Cajuns fought back from Johnson's injury, Colby Batiste fouling out after playing just twelve minutes and Randell Daigle fouling out after the worst block/charge call I've ever seen. Referee James Hicks absolutely killed the Cajuns last night. And, with all that, they battled back from double digits down to take the lead inside of two minutes. But Tony Hooper, who scored 32 points the first time he faced the Cajuns in his career, scored the last six of his 30 in the final 90 seconds. The first tied the game at 74. And, after Lamar Roberson's 15 footer gave the Cajuns the lead with 16 seconds left, Hooper hit an off balance three pointer with 0.7 left to win it and send the Cajuns to their toughest defeat in many years.
Somehow, given all they had to overcome, it didn't seem fair.
It's going to be an interesting next couple of weeks over at the complex. Something tells me I'm going to be blogging a lot during that time.