UL Basketball Faces Incarnate Word In CIT

Louisiana’s Ragin’ Cajun men’s basketball team returns to the hardwood on Tuesday night, when coach Bob Marlin’s squad takes on the Incarnate Word Cardinals in the opening round of the CollegeInsider.com Tournament in San Antonio, Texas.

Tip-off time is scheduled for 7 o’clock, and you can hear all the play-by-play action on our sister-station, Hot 107.9 FM & 1079ishot.com, beginning with the pregame show at 6:30 pm.

The winner moves on to play in the second round of the CIT, scheduled for March 20-21, at campus sites in the 32-team event.

For Louisiana, it's their second-consecutive postseason appearance, and their 14th in program history, since beginning NCAA competition in the 1970-1971 season.

For Incarnate Word, who is only in their second year of NCAA Division 1 affiliation, the tournament marks their first postseason appearance at this level.

Louisiana, who is coming off of an 83-79 semifinal loss to Georgia St. in the Sun Belt Conference Tournament, which snapped their seven-game win streak, is 20-13 on the season, while Incarnate Word is 19-13, overall, including a 10-8 mark in Southland Conference play, which was good enough for fifth place.

The Cajuns are outscoring the opposition, 77.4/69.5, and out-shooting foes from the floor, 45.6%/42.3%, while holding down a 39.9/33.2 rebounding edge.

UL is paced by junior forward Shawn Long, who leads the team in both scoring and rebounding, at 16.4 ppg, and 10.3 rpg, respectively, and senior forward Brian Williams, who is averaging 10.1 points, to go along with 3.7 rebounds a contest.

The Cardinals are out-scoring the opposition, 79.6/74.9, while out-shooting foes from the field, 47.2%/44.8%, and being out-rebounded, 35.8/33.5.

Incarnate Word is paced by senior guard Denzel Livingston, who is averaging 22.0 points and 6.0 rebounds-per-game, along with junior guard Kyle Hittle, who is averaging 16.1 points, to go along with 6.4 rebounds a contest.

The two teams split the two regular season match-ups, with Louisiana winning, 84-80, in Lafayette, and Georgia coming out on top, 75-64, in Atlanta, Georgia.

This will mark the first meeting ever between the two schools.