First Half Shooting Woes Doom Louisiana in 76-44 Loss to Indiana

The Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns basketball team suffered a lopsided defeat at the hands of the Indiana Hoosiers, losing 76-44 to earn their first loss of the 2021-22 season.

The Cajuns are now 3-1 with a road matchup against a future Sun Belt Conference foe, the Marshall Thundering Herd coming up on Tuesday.

Head coach Bob Marlin attributed the loss to the team's slow start offensively, but he also gave Indiana credit.

"They've got a good team and they played extremely well," Marlin said. "We got off to a poor start. We just didn't make shots. You've got to do that on the road and we didn't do it."

The Cajuns had a rough first half offensively, and Indiana was able to take an early lead that they never lost.

By the first timeout, Indiana jumped out to a 10-4 lead. Louisiana went on a scoring drought that lasted nearly five minutes. A free throw finally broke that streak, and Indiana's lead was 14-5.

Their shooting woes continued in the first half. The Cajuns missed 25 straight shots and started 2-29 from the field. They also only hit three of their first eight free throw attempts.

The Hoosiers used the poor shooting performance by Louisiana to go on a 13-1 run and led 29-7 with five minutes remaining in the first half.

The Cajuns went 13 minutes in the first half without a field goal. Finally, after missing 25 straight shots, freshman forward Joe Charles hit the Cajuns first three-pointer of the game to break the streaks and get Louisiana into double-digits.

At halftime, Louisiana trailed Indiana 37-14. They were 4-34 from the field, 1-10 from the three-point line, and 4-10 on free throws.

Louisiana started the second half with seven quick points in two minutes, but Indiana had eight in that same time span. The Hoosiers lead was still comfortable at 45-21.

A shot and free throw by forward Theo Akwuba got the game to 48-26, but the Hoosiers hit three consecutive three-pointers to stretch it back out to their largest lead of the game.

Louisiana's offense went on yet another cold streak in the second half, hitting only one of 14 field goals. Indiana's lead eventually ballooned to 69-32 with eight minutes remaining.

The Cajuns scored the last eight points, but Indiana went on to win 76-44 to hand the Cajuns their first loss of the 2021-22 season.

In the game, Louisiana made only 14 of their 73 shots for a shooting percentage of 19 percent. They hit two of their 20 three-pointers. On the other side, Indiana shot 53 percent from the floor and 52 percent from three.

Marlin appreciated his team's effort in the postgame.

"It just kind of snowballed and got out of hand early and there wasn't much we could do," Marlin said. "We shot 73 times to their 52, but we made half the field goals. We played hard. We just weren't smart at times and weren't efficient."

The Cajuns only have a couple of days to move on from this one before they face their next road test against Marshall on Tuesday, Nov. 23 at 6:00 p.m. Marshall is 3-1 this season.