Samford Goes Ragin’ All Over the Cajuns, 88-65
Samford just had their biggest test of this nine-game homestand and came out of it with flying colors. The Bulldogs get their sixth straight win and improve to 6-2 after a 88-65 win. Yes, Samford did not shoot the ball well from the outside but Louisiana did not either. The Ragin’ Cajuns came into the game making 10.9 threes per game and only made three.
We mentioned in Know Your Foe that Samford will look to speed up Louisiana and they did just that. The Cajuns looked out of sync as a unit offensively as they could not adjust to Samford’s full court pressure. While Louisiana F Kobe Julien did have 29 points, no Cajun had more than 10.
Meanwhile, Samford had three different guys score 19 or more points. F Achor Achor had 25, G AJ Staton-McCray had 22, and G Jaden Campbell had 19. Campbell has played extremely well in lieu of Jermaine Marshall’s hand injury and has been exactly what this Samford team needed because of that.
It feels like Staton-McCray has been the emotional leader for this team in this stretch of Marshall not being available. AJ is the longest tenured player on this roster and had to deal with multiple injuries early in his career. To see him play this confidently, on the offensive end especially, has been extremely exciting. Head coach Bucky McMillan talked postgame about when he is on, watch out.
“When he is going on offense, he has an unorthodox game in a lot of ways because he makes different types of shots,” said McMillan. When he is making those shots, he looks like magic out there. He really is coming into his own and knows exactly who he is and how he needs to play.”
Another player who has come on as of late is Utah State transfer G Rylan Jones. While Jones only had six points, he tallied 9 assists. That was Jones’s second consecutive game finishing with 9 assists. We had Rylan in the interview room post game and I asked him if he is playing more confidently now rather than at the start of the year.
“When I got here, I had not played a basketball game in over a year. It is kind of crazy just trying to find a rhythm of playing in a basketball game,” said Jones. You can make as many as you want in practice, but there is something about the game that is different. We have a great group of guys and we are really connected. When you are really connected, it is easy to have a lot of confidence and when playing together, sharing the ball, everybody plays better.”
Bucky talked about that also in response to our question last week about how well this team shares the ball. Samford is 17th in the country per KenPom in assists per made field goals. This is a trend that will definitely continue and it will make this team an even more exciting watch as SoCon play quickly approaches.
Samford is back in action against LaGrange College on Sunday at 4:00pm CT before getting a week off due to final exams.
