The UL Ragin’ Cajuns opened the season without three contributors and with 11 newcomers.
That’s not a good recipe for success against a team that won 29 games last season.
So it wasn’t unexpected when the Cajuns fell to the Akron Zips 75-61 Monday in the Cajundome.
Along the way, however, coach Quannas White’s new club showed some grit with a run in the second half and also plenty of potential in the loss.
“I really like this team,” White said. “When you face adversity, it tells you a lot, man. We faced some adversity tonight, but our guys didn’t give in.”
It was plenty obvious why redshirt junior Jamyron Keller was the Cajuns’ Preseason All-Sun Belt third team selection. Keller led all scorers with 26 points behind four 3s and 6-for-6 shooting at the line, along with four assists and two rebounds.
“We’ve got to get it,” a visibly emotional Keller said after the loss. “We’ve got to get it pulled off. We had it, I think we cut it to seven, in the second half. No matter how I’m feeling, we just have got to get it done.
“We’ve got a lot new pieces and a lot of guys out, but there are no excuses. Not excuse at all. We just have got to get it done.”
Tennessee Tech forward Dani Pounds also made a good first impression with 15 points, seven rebounds and three steals In 30 minutes.
Pounds also made a 3 down the stretch and had four dunks.
“He’s a bright spot for us, man,” White said of Pounds. “Dani Pounds is going to help us. I love him.”
Trent Middleton also had some encouraging moments, finishing with 14 points, five rebounds and two steals in 31 minutes.
Middleton started at point guard because projected starter Mekhi Cooper has missed a month with a hip flexor, but still played 26 minutes off the bench.
“I just do whatever coach wants me to do,” Middleton said. “I mean I just got out there with my teammates and try to fly around on defense. That’s how he (White) wants to run his program and we’re all dialing into it.”
Cooper collected five points with three assists.
“He’s only practiced for two days,” White said of Cooper. “I thought he did well.”
Unfortunately, one sign all too familiar from last season is UL had three double-figure scorers, but the fourth leading scorer only had five points and no one else score more than one point.
De’Vion Lavergne suffered an injury and only scored one point in 19 minutes. In other injury news, Todd Jones and Deion Ware didn’t play. Their timetables aren’t certain, but both are expected back sometimes in November.
“I thought we rushed a couple of shots, but we got great looks,” White said. “We had maybe a couple possessions here and there, but for the most part, we got wide open shots. You got to knock those shots down. We didn’t the night, but we’ll keep working at it and it’ll happen.”
The Zips shot 46% percent from the field, compared to just 28.6% from the Cajuns. One area where UL shined was only committing seven turnovers while forcing 16 for Akron.
“I thought we gave up a ton of open shots,” White said. “We lost those guys, not in the first half was in transition. In the second half, when we got into our zone, we just had too many breakdowns.”
The rebound battle didn’t go UL’s way, though, getting outboarded 45-29.
Ty Pence led the Zips with 19 points and eight rebounds, followed by Evan Mahaffey with 16 points and 11 boards and Tahj Staveskie with 15 on 5-of-16 shooting from 3-point land.
Perhaps the most impressive part of the game in the losing effort for UL was its run in the second half.
The Cajuns only trailed 26-22 with 7:45 left in the first half after a Pounds steal and dunk.
But the Zips promptly responded with a 15-1 run that built a 19-point lead over the Cajuns a minute into the second half.
“They got out in transition,” White said. “We didn’t do a good job getting back in transition and finding our man and communicating. And that led to their early lead – a ton of 3 that were uncontested.”
It was the first of four 19-point leads in the second half, including 57-38 with 13:10 left.
That when the Cajuns put together a 19-7 run to trim Akron’s lead to 64-57 with 6:52 left.
Unfortunately for the home fans, though, Akron answered with a 7-0 run to squash any lingering UL comeback hopes.
The Cajuns didn’t score over the final 3:20 of the game.
“If you could have been in that locker room and just looked at his face,” White said of Keller. “His body language tells you everything. He was really, really upset that we lost. But that’ll just to motivate them, all of them.”
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