Cajuns Pull Away from Lamar

Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns (4-6) pulled away from Lamar behind the double doubles of Shawn Long and Elfrid Payton to down the Cardinals 77-60 in the Cajundome Tuesday night.

Louisiana received the support of four different Cajuns scoring in double figures in breaking the game open against Lamar. In addition to Long and Payton's double doubles, Alan-Michael Thompson and Bryant Mbamalu also scored in double figures in the night.

Alan-Michael Thompson led the Cajuns with a career-high 18 points. Payton scored 17 points to go along with 11 rebounds and Long contributed 16 points and 11 rebounds.

The Ragin’ Cajuns scored the game’s first 11 points as Long scored eight of his 10 first half points in the first five minutes for the Cajuns; UL went on an 11-0 run to begin the game. Lamar would eventually picked things up, going on a 7-2 run of their own at the 6:23 mark, getting to within eight points, 25-17.

Thompson, who led all scorers with 13 points in the first half, got hot in the final minutes, knocking down back-to-back triples after Josh Soto had hit one of his own from the top of the key to ignite a 12-2 surge that stretched the Cajuns lead to 37-19 at halftime.

"“Alan-Michael Thompson gave us a big boost off the bench and took a lot of good shots,” Marlin added. “We tried to give the younger guys more minutes tonight and got a lot of contributions for a great team win.”

UL would stretch the lead to 20 points early in the second half and eventually led by as many as 24 points following a Payton three-point play with 7:50 remaining.

Lamar went on a 7-0 run to cut thier deficit to 17 points with 5:30 left to play. However, the Cajuns answered as Aaron LeBlanc, Payton, and Kasey Shepherd knocked down shots over a minute and a half span to put the game away.

Louisiana shot 39.7 percent from the field (27-68) compared to 43.9 percent (25-57) for Lamar. Lamar finished the game with a 39-36 rebounding advantage. The Cajuns generated 24 points off 25 Lamar turnovers.

Louisiana travels to Houston Saturday to face off against the Cougars at 7:00 p.m. inside Hofheinz Pavilion on the UH campus.