In year two of the coach Quannas White era, the UL Ragin’ Cajuns won’t be easing in the regular season.
Instead, the Cajuns will play their first Sun Belt/MAC Challenge game of the season and that league’s defending regular season and tournament champion Akron will be in Lafayette for Monday’s 7 p.m. matchup in the Cajundome.
.”This is a team that has been to the tournament back-to-back years,” said White, whose Cajuns will play at an undetermined MAC opponent on Saturday, Feb. 6. “So we’re really excited about the challenge.”
Indeed, Akron is coming off an outstanding campaign. The Zips were 29-6 overall and 17-1 in MAC play.
In this game last year, Akron defeated James Madison 85-71. At the end, the Zips swept through the MAC Tournament before losing to Texas Tech 91-71 in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament.
Meanwhile, the Cajuns went through an injury-plagued 11-22 season in White’s first season.
It’s unclear if the Cajuns will be a full health for this opener. In Wednesday’s introductory press conference, White didn’t get specific.
“We go into the season as healthy as possible,” he said. “We’ve got a couple guys with some knick-knack injuries – groins, and things of that nature. But for the most part, we’re healthy and really excited for this upcoming season.”
UL fans will need a roster for Monday’s game with 10 newcomers on the squad. Among the ones expected to make huge impact are: 6-foot senior point guard Mekhi Cooper, 6-3, guard Trent Middleton, 6-8 senior forward Dani Pounds and 6-7 senior forward Josiah Harris.
“We brought in a lot of veterans,” White said. “Mekhi is going to be our starting point guard. We’re just really excited about those guys coming in. These guys are getting more familiar with what we want defensively and offensively.
“We’re taking it day by day, but all of our focus right now is on this first game.”
The familiar names will be 6-foot-10 junior forward Jeremiah Evans, 6-9 forward Todd Jones, 6-3 redshirt junior guard De’Vion Lavergne and 6-3 redshirt junior guard Jamyron Keller.
“I always talk about experience being the best teacher,” White said. “Having those guys (returnees) who have been through it can instill what we started building last year to help our new guys.”
On Monday, the fans will get the first peek how that’s shaping out thus far.
This is the season opener for Akron as well, but the Zips played a public exhibition game against Youngstown State. Akron won the game 92-76 behind three impressive performances.
Tahj Staveskie was unstoppable with 28 points on 9-of-15 shooting overall and 4-of-8 accuracy from 3-point land. Staveskie also contributed five rebounds, five assists and five steals.
The redshirt senior is in his first season at Akron after previously playing Canisius, Cleveland State and Incarnate Word, where he averaged 17.3 points last season.
Kamrin Oriol scored 18 points on 8-of-11 shooting, including two 3s, as a 6-foot-3 graduate senior. He averaged 20.9 points and 4.2 assists behind 88.7% at the line for North Florida last season.
The 6-foot-6 Evan Mahaffey also scored 18 points in the win on 7-of-11 shooting, along with six rebounds and two assists. Unlike the other two, this is Mahaffey’s second year at Akron, but he previously played at Ohio State and Penn State.
“They want to play fast,” Keller said. “They want to get shots up quickly – maybe in the first 10 to 12 seconds on the shot clock. They’re going to move well without the ball. They want to play out of a bar screen.
“They want to play on backside. they want to flare. They want to pin down. They want to get you in actions. They want to move you. They want to get offensive rebounds and kick out for 3s. They’re high-volume shooting team. They got really talented, talented players, and they’re going to play hard.”
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