Privateers stand between Cards, 3-0 Southland start
Published 3:28 pm Tuesday, January 2, 2018
Lamar sports information
BEAUMONT – Lamar will open the new year on the road at New Orleans on Wednesday evening in Southland Conference action.
For the Cardinals (10-5, 2-0 Southland), they travel to the Big Easy looking for their first 3-0 start in conference play since the 1999-2000 season. To do that they will have to go through the defending Southland champion Privateers.
After a slow start to the season, the Privateers (5-8, 2-0) appear to be righting the ship at the start of league play. New Orleans has won two straight and three of its past four entering Wednesday’s contest against the Cardinals. The Privateers opened conference play with a thrilling three-point victory over Abilene Christian in New Orleans before traveling to Houston and defeating Houston Baptist, 64-57.
Wednesday’s game will help breakup the log jam at the top of the Southland standings. LU and New Orleans are two of five schools tied for the top spot in the league chase just two games into the Southland schedule. Of the three remaining teams (Nicholls State, Southeastern Louisiana and McNeese State), two play on the road Wednesday while Southeastern Louisiana returns to action on Saturday (having already defeated preseason favorite Stephen F. Austin).
Off to their best Southland start since 2011-12, the Cardinals will look to keep that momentum going Wednesday in New Orleans. They first team in program history to win 10 games before the new year.
History is not on LU’s side in the series. The Cardinals trail the all-time series to UNO, 7-27 (.206), recording a mere two wins all-time in New Orleans (2-14, .125). Ironically, a good number of those losses have come at the hands of their current head coach – Tic Price – when he was the head coach at UNO. The Cardinals travel to New Orleans looking to put a stop to a three-game slide in the series.
Senior Travin Thibodeaux leads the Privateers offense. He is scoring better than 16 points per game, but he is the lone player averaging in double digits for an offense that is scoring less than 70 points per game. UNO remains one of the best shooting teams in the conference entering the week ranked third overall in field goal percentage (47.5 percent).
Senior Colton Weisbrod is one of three Cardinals averaging in double figures for an offense that is scoring nearly 77 points per game. Weisbrod is averaging 15.2 points per game and leads the Southland pulling down better than nine rebounds per game and is coming off one of his best outings of the season. The Nederland native scored a season-high 26 points and pulled down 14 rebounds to help LU hold off Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Saturday at the American Bank Center.
The team’s second leading scorer, Nick Garth, has found his hot hand again after scuffling through a six-game stretch that saw him hit double figures only once during that time. He is averaging 11.9 points per game on the season, but has scored nearly 15 per over the course of the past four games. Junior Josh Nzeakor is averaging 11.2 points and is fourth in the league in rebounds (7.4 rpg).