Cajuns lose Greene
Loss creates huge void at point guard position
LAFAYETTE - A challenging season just got harder for Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns.
Two days after a 96-51 road loss at Kansas dropped his team to 3-4, coach Robert Lee began searching for a new point guard on Monday following news that senior Orien Greene is sidelined indefinitely.
Greene broke a non-weight bearing bone in his lower right leg early in the Kansas contest and will miss this week's trip to play North Carolina State. His availability for future action is uncertain.
"Well," Lee said, "the news continues to get worse. We're not sure how long Orien is going to be out, so we're going to play 4-on-5 ..."
Maintaining a sense of humor is valuable for Lee, who then took a serious look at the crucial position for his team.
"We'll insert either Derek Gray or Spencer Ford into the lineup and adjust the way we need to play," Lee said. "Without Orien, there's no way we can run the up-tempo game we like to have. The game needs to be in the 60's for us to succeed."
Losing Greene early at Kansas was a shock to the Cajuns, who were going to be hard-pressed to pull off an upset in the best of circumstances.
"It was a very difficult trip for us," Lee said. "Kansas is a great basketball team. They took us out of everything we tried to do.
"It didn't help that we lost Orien 10-12 minutes into the game. Once he went out, we had a difficult time executing our offense. If you're inexperienced in that type of setting, they're going to eat you up, and that's what happened.
"I asked him today if he was in pain, and he said, 'Only when I walk.' "
Greene is the Cajun leader in assists (27) and steals (23) and is second on the team in scoring at 13.1 points per game. He also helped UL to a 20-9 record and the Sun Belt Conference championship last season by averaging 10.4 points per game and dishing out 54 assists.
But the biggest loss is Greene's experience against top competition.
"He could be out four weeks, or it could be a couple of months," Lee said. "We just don't know. But we've got to go on without him. I'm sure our opponents could care less that's he's hurt.
"Other guys have got to step up. I'm sure somebody will. I'm just not sure who that will be."
Lee has never faced this kind of loss by injury at a key position.
"Everything is relative," said Lee, whose last head coaching post was at Opelousas High. "My first year at OHS, I kicked our best player off the team because I thought it needed to be done. But I haven't had this (injury loss) before.
"We'll just have to come up with a different way to give the team more chances to be successful."
Leading scorer Tiras Wade is also battling a sore shooting hand, so the Cajuns have no shortage of hurdles to overcome.
There's not enough time to address every need before Wednesday's game against a 7-0 N.C. State team that has plenty of talent back from the team that defeated the Cajuns 61-52 in last year's NCAA Tournament.
And no matter the choice at point guard, running the UL squad at Raleigh isn't likely to be any more enjoyable than it was last weekend.
"N.C. State is one of the favorites in the ACC," Lee said. "We'll have to execute better, guard people better and play better. That will help us for down the road.
"We have to get better. We can still run better transition defense, block shots and block out on the boards. We're focused on fundamentals and getting better."
Doing that without Orien Greene would be the biggest challenge yet.
Loss creates huge void at point guard position
LAFAYETTE - A challenging season just got harder for Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns.
Two days after a 96-51 road loss at Kansas dropped his team to 3-4, coach Robert Lee began searching for a new point guard on Monday following news that senior Orien Greene is sidelined indefinitely.
Greene broke a non-weight bearing bone in his lower right leg early in the Kansas contest and will miss this week's trip to play North Carolina State. His availability for future action is uncertain.
"Well," Lee said, "the news continues to get worse. We're not sure how long Orien is going to be out, so we're going to play 4-on-5 ..."
Maintaining a sense of humor is valuable for Lee, who then took a serious look at the crucial position for his team.
"We'll insert either Derek Gray or Spencer Ford into the lineup and adjust the way we need to play," Lee said. "Without Orien, there's no way we can run the up-tempo game we like to have. The game needs to be in the 60's for us to succeed."
Losing Greene early at Kansas was a shock to the Cajuns, who were going to be hard-pressed to pull off an upset in the best of circumstances.
"It was a very difficult trip for us," Lee said. "Kansas is a great basketball team. They took us out of everything we tried to do.
"It didn't help that we lost Orien 10-12 minutes into the game. Once he went out, we had a difficult time executing our offense. If you're inexperienced in that type of setting, they're going to eat you up, and that's what happened.
"I asked him today if he was in pain, and he said, 'Only when I walk.' "
Greene is the Cajun leader in assists (27) and steals (23) and is second on the team in scoring at 13.1 points per game. He also helped UL to a 20-9 record and the Sun Belt Conference championship last season by averaging 10.4 points per game and dishing out 54 assists.
But the biggest loss is Greene's experience against top competition.
"He could be out four weeks, or it could be a couple of months," Lee said. "We just don't know. But we've got to go on without him. I'm sure our opponents could care less that's he's hurt.
"Other guys have got to step up. I'm sure somebody will. I'm just not sure who that will be."
Lee has never faced this kind of loss by injury at a key position.
"Everything is relative," said Lee, whose last head coaching post was at Opelousas High. "My first year at OHS, I kicked our best player off the team because I thought it needed to be done. But I haven't had this (injury loss) before.
"We'll just have to come up with a different way to give the team more chances to be successful."
Leading scorer Tiras Wade is also battling a sore shooting hand, so the Cajuns have no shortage of hurdles to overcome.
There's not enough time to address every need before Wednesday's game against a 7-0 N.C. State team that has plenty of talent back from the team that defeated the Cajuns 61-52 in last year's NCAA Tournament.
And no matter the choice at point guard, running the UL squad at Raleigh isn't likely to be any more enjoyable than it was last weekend.
"N.C. State is one of the favorites in the ACC," Lee said. "We'll have to execute better, guard people better and play better. That will help us for down the road.
"We have to get better. We can still run better transition defense, block shots and block out on the boards. We're focused on fundamentals and getting better."
Doing that without Orien Greene would be the biggest challenge yet.
