Cajuns Travel to Hammond for Final Non-Conference Tilt

Following an eleven day break for the Christmas holidays, the Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns men's basketball team has its final non-conference contest of the season Saturday afternoon as they face Southeastern Louisiana at the University Center in Hammond.

This is the second game of a scheduled three game series between the Cajuns and Lions.  Louisiana took an 82-74 win last year at the Cajundome in the first meeting between the two schools since the 1984-85 season.  This will be the first meeting between the two teams in Hammond since the Cajuns took an 87-70 win in the 1970-71 season when the two teams were still in the NCAA College Division.

The Cajuns (8-4) took an 80-67 win over McNeese State in their last outing on December 18th.  Southeastern (4-8) dropped its fourth straight game last Saturday, falling at Bradley, 63-60.

The Cajuns played the game in Lake Charles without the services of leading scorer and rebounder JaKeenan Gant, who was injured early in the Cajuns' loss to Louisiana Tech back on December 15th.  Gant is questionable for Saturday's game, although he has been doing some running and has practiced on a limited basis the last two days.

The Lions' woes can be directly traced to their struggles shooting the basketball.  SLU is shooting just .402 from the field and ..283 from three point range.  The numbers are considerably better at the University Center, however, as the Lions shoot .468 and.344 respectively when playing at home.

Coach Jay Ladner's club, picked second in the Southland Conference, is led by returning starters Moses Greenwood and Marlain Veal.  Greenwood leads the Lions in scoring (16.1) and rebounding (7.4), while Veal, a preseason first team all conference selection, scores at a 13.8 clip while leading the team in assists, dishing out five per game.

The Cajuns will return home to open Sun Belt Conference play January 3 when they take on Arkansas State.