Last season was a magical one for the Louisiana Ragin Cajuns with the team putting up an average of 83 points per game and dominating the Sun Belt Conference with only two losses to Georgia Southern and Little Rock. This looks to be another strong season with plenty of experience returning to the roster, including some of the top scorers in the program.
All that being said, the first month of the schedule doesn’t leave them much room for error with a road matchup against the preseason number one Kansas Jayhawks being the third game of the season. Without any more preamble, let’s get into a look ahead to the Cajuns 2018-19 season.
Notable Departures:
The Cajuns offense undoubtedly took a huge hit with Frank Bartley, Jonathan Stove, and Bryce Washington leaving the program. All three of these players averaged double figures last season, but perhaps losing Washington will hurt the most as he was a monster on the boards averaging 10.5 rebounds per game.
“I’m more concerned about the rebounding and probably rightfully so losing the guys that have averaged 10 a year for six years in a row, four for Shawn and two for Bryce.” Head coach Bob Marlin said, “You’re talking about two of the leading rebounders in school history and two of the top three in Sun Belt history which is outstanding.“
You look at the returning players this season, JaKeenan Gant was the closest to Washington in that statistic, but it was still a wide margin with the senior only averaging 5.8 rebounds per game.
Returning Players:
While there have some key departures from last season, don’t think that this is a rebuilding year as the starting five has a ton of experience. With three seniors leading the way in Malik Marquetti, JaKeenan Gant, and Marcus Stroman this offense isn’t going to miss a step in terms of putting points on the board. If there’s one player that the team expects to break out is Marquetti.
“Malik Marquetti has been dominant in our scrimmages and in practice.” Marlin said about the former USC Trojan, “He’s really played the best basketball since he joined the program. He’s a hard guy to guard. He’s versatile and can do a lot of different things. You can look for us to play small some and play him at the power forward.”
Stroman is expected to have a solid year, but Marlin mentioned that he’ll need to be more of a scorer as opposed to a facilitator which the Cajuns head coach said was in his DNA. One player that is flying under the radar has to be Cedric Russell. The sophomore was solid from three-point range last season (43 percent shooting) and will be expected to continue that streak this season without Washington and Stove not on the court.
Notable Non-Conference Games:
The Cajuns first two road games are going to be the most interesting with a road matchup on November 9th against the Tennessee Volunteers, who went 26-9 last season and is ranked sixth in the preseason polls and then they make a trip to Phog Allen Fieldhouse to take on a basketball powerhouse in the Kansas Jayhawks on November 16th which Marlin mentioned was a great opportunity.
“We’ve talked about Phog Allen Fieldhouse as being one of the elite places to play in college basketball. It’s no different than Coach Napier’s group going to play Alabama at Bryant-Denny Stadium. It’s an awesome opportunity and you can learn a lot about your team. They’ve had some distractions in the news lately and we’ll play as hard as we can and see where we stack up.”
Overall Thoughts:
The Ragin Cajuns are poised to have another big season with an experienced starting five combined with some youth on the bench. However, the Sun Belt Conference continues to get better and could cause some problems for a team that pretty much ran roughshod over the conference. A run in the NCAA Tournament isn’t out of the realm of possibility with the talent on this program, but they need to win when they head to New Orleans in mid-March if they want that to happen.
-Clint Domingue