Cajun stumblaya

Hilltopper road woes continue, fall hard at Louisiana-Lafayette

By OJ Stapleton, ojstapleton@bgdailynews.com — 270-783-3239

Friday, January 28, 2005

LAFAYETTE, La. Western Kentucky picked a bad time to play perhaps its worst game of the season.

The Hilltoppers (12-5, 2-3 Sun Belt Conference) forced only 14 turnovers and allowed Louisiana-Lafayette to shoot 55.2 percent in a 91-76 loss at the Cajundome.

This is by far the worst defense weve played this year, WKU freshman Courtney Lee said. We werent communicating with each other, we didnt rotate we just didnt do the things we usually do.

The Ragin Cajuns (11-7, 5-1) came into the game averaging 16.6 turnovers, but had no problem breaking the WKU press.

This was our worst game of the year, WKU guard Anthony Winchester said. We went into halftime with only three deflections and thats one of the things that we thrive on.

The defeat drops Western Kentucky to 0-3 on the road in the Sun Belt. WKU has now lost four consecutive road games.

I dont know what it is, but (playing on the road) shouldnt be anything, Lee said. This is just basketball. We should always play the game the same way every time.

The Hilltoppers never led in the second half, but did make it interesting.

WKU erased an 11-point deficit with a 13-4 run in which Lee scored six of his career-high 22 points to make the score 61-59 with 6:42 left in the game.

But that was as close as Western made it.

Louisiana-Lafayette outscored the Toppers 30-17 over the final six minutes to close out the game.

The first three minutes of that stretch were the most crucial.

The Cajuns got three 3-pointers and scored 14 points while the Hilltoppers were a miserable 0-for-5 from the field to put them behind 75-61 with just 3:03 left in the game.

I thought they made some shots late in the second half that were out of character for them, WKU coach Darrin Horn said. When youve played that well throughout the game, though, youre going to be a little more confident.

Western Kentucky had a 6-2 lead early in the first half after back-to-back dunks by Elgrace Wilborn.

But Louisiana-Lafayette took control of the game with an 11-1 run. The spurt was capped by a putback by Brian Hamilton off a badly missed 3-pointer that was put up by Ross Mouton as the shot clock was winding down.

Winchester brought the Hilltoppers to within one when he canned consecutive 3-pointers in a 32-second span to make the score 28-27 with 7:05 left in the first half.

The Cajuns got hot from long range to end the half. Three of their final seven baskets of the first came from 3-point range and they took a 45-38 lead into the locker room.

Winchester scored 40 points against ULL last season in a loss at Diddle Arena. He was still the Toppers leading scorer on Thursday, but had just 23 points.

He scored 16 in the first half, but was held to 2-of-8 shooting in the second.

In the first half, we did a good job of guarding everybody except Winchester, ULL coach Robert Lee said. We knew he was capable of doing those things, but we also knew that he was not capable of beating us by himself.

Lee had one of his best games ever with career highs in both points and rebounds 15.

Tiras Wade led Louisiana-Lafayette with 22 points. Chris Cameron and Dwayne Mitchell both finished with 19 and Hamilton added 18.

The Cajuns may be the one team WKU has played this year with less depth than the Toppers.

Louisiana-Lafayettes five starters accounted for 88 percent of the teams total minutes.

We have to develop some guys on our bench because its going to be hard to ask those five guys to play like that every night if were going to have a chance to win the conference tournament, Robert Lee said.

Western Kentucky will still be searching for its first conference road victory when it returns to action Saturday at New Mexico State.

Its important for this team to bounce back and play in a way so that gives us an opportunity to win down the stretch, Horn said.  Daily News ·813 College St. ·PO Box 90012 ·Bowling Green, KY ·42102 ·270-781-1700