The Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns women’s basketball team fell 65-59 to the UL Monroe Warhawks on Thursday night inside the Cajundome. The loss moves Louisiana to 2-4 in Sun Belt Conference play.
HOW IT HAPPENED:
Louisiana entered this game extremely short-handed. Seven players were unavailable due to illness, including one starter and all three frontcourt options off the bench. That was reflected early, as after a 4-2 start, the Cajuns suffered through a long drought. After one quarter, ULM led 20-9.
The second quarter began much better, as Louisiana began the quarter on a 9-0 run to cut the lead to 20-18. However, ULM responded, as they would then outscore the Cajuns 13-5 throughout the rest of the quarter, largely thanks to the three-point shooting of Lauren Gross and Jakayla Johnson. For the Cajuns, Destiny Rice led all first half scorers with nine points.
Things went back and forth in the third, but the Cajuns started to make up some ground towards the end of the quarter. A Tamera Johnson three made it 43-40 with a minute to play in the quarter. One more Warhawk basket stretched it back to 45-40 at the end of three.
In the fourth, Louisiana battled throughout, cutting it to a one-score game several times. However, they never were able to draw things even. At 59-58, the Warhawks made both free throws and got a defensive stop. Eventually, the Cajuns fell too far behind and fell 65-59.
BIG NUMBER: 37
ULM led for 37 of the 40 minutes in this game. While the Cajuns battled throughout, they could never quite dig themselves out of the hole that was created early on.
PLAYER OF THE GAME: Nunu Bradford
After a slow start offensively, the Warhawks’ best option got things going in the second half. She ended up right at her season average with 20 points, leading ULM in the victory.
UP NEXT: Louisiana will be back in action on Saturday afternoon as they play host to the Troy Trojans at 2:00 PM.