COURTROOM Showdown: Louisiana Tech Battles Conference USA—Sun Belt Drama EXPLODES Before Season

We've got some courtroom drama, and this one doesn't even include the NCAA.

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Okay, we got the out of conference baseball schedule wrapping up a weekend at series anyways.

We'll get to that.

Southern Misspeed's JMU.

I'm not sure how except a guy named Weeks.

And it's a little inside baseball information.

We also have, by the way, we'll talk about a little bit.

How about South Alabama women's hoops?

Down there are three leading scores.

They beat Texas State anyways.

They scored more in the third quarter than they did in the first half.

Unbelievable.

So try to figure out what today's episode was going to be about.

And we have JMU and Southern Miss.

We'll talk about that.

We got the baseball to preview.

Maybe South Alabama women's hoops.

There's plenty to discuss.

And then we get into the car on the way home, scroll the timeline.

And we have La Tech suing conference USA.

Backtrack a little bit.

So a couple of weeks ago, I reached out to the guys up north.

Matt Belinston, who is La Tech speedwriter for the Rustin leader.

And our guy Sean Fox sports talk 97 seven.

Hope you're feeling better.

Foxy.

What's going on?

I haven't heard anything.

Seems awfully quiet.

And they both said moving forward.

Don't I have anything to think otherwise?

They're just negotiating.

And basically what they're negotiating is technically.

La Tech didn't give they were supposed to be giving a conference USA.

A heads up by June 30th, I believe, of last year.

They didn't do it until the middle of July as if that's the biggest of all deals.

But whatever.

So in the meantime,

conference USA has been suing La Tech because they want more money.

They think La Tech was really going to go to the Sunbelt way before they actually decided,

which they probably were because remember,

this all started getting the ball rolling in June.

When in the middle of coastal Carolina's first college World Series game,

Pete Famel among others announces Texas state is officially leaving.

The Sunbelt is interested in La Tech.

He doesn't get those things out of thin air.

And so someone was telling him that.

So now you got to wait for the process.

Texas state has to officially leave before the Sunbelt can engage in the Louisiana Tech.

That's what happens.

It goes past when the deadline is supposed to be to get out for that 26 season.

They're trying to play football.

I mean, it's March, March, April, May, June, July, August.

It's in six months.

I really thought this was going to be done towards the end of last year.

And it's not.

Now the script has been flipped instead of a conference USA suing Louisiana Tech.

Louisiana Tech is suing conference USA.

And it was Ross Dellinger from Yahoo Sports, who tweeted it out.

But it is in the Lincoln Paris Journal because, of course,

and Malcolm Butler wrote it, not Malcolm Butler, I presume,

but another Malcolm Butler.

The Board of Supervisors for University of Louisiana system filed lawsuit late Wednesday.

On behalf of Louisiana Tech University against conference USA.

The 102 page docket was a file with a third judicial district court in Lincoln Parish.

As a petition for temporary, preliminary and permanent injunctive relief and declaratory relief.

So they want to be part of the Sun Belt immediately.

Although that seems to be temporary, preliminary, and permanent.

Those things seem to be in conflict with each other.

Nonetheless, it's coming down to the dates.

All right.

When Louisiana Tech accepted the Sun Belt conference's limitation,

which July 14th, 2025, the University notified conference USA that it would make the move on July 1st, 2026.

However, comments USA corresponded three days later attempting to change the effective data departure,

citing certain provisions in CSUA, CSSA bylaws.

All right.

The two sides actually met at the end of July,

where tech officials notified league officials of its decision to leave,

citing substantial and immediate travel, our savings to be achieved for student athletes by moving to a regional conference.

We all know why they wanted to make the move.

The Sun Belt is actually better now than conference USA, and it's closer.

It is a closer.

And so that's where we are today.

According to lawsuit, tech declined to make an offer at the in-person meeting,

but agreed to provide a subsequent written offer.

The conference has accepted financial consideration for prior members who exited the conference

that provided significantly fewer days notice than tech,

with the conference's prior dealings of these former members.

I get every reason to believe that good faith financial discussions would proceed.

Tech provided a financial offer on August 1st, which is pretty quick,

as requested in that in-person tech and in-person meeting,

again, informing the league that it would be departing July 1st of the following year.

According to the lawsuit, tech further expressed its desire to satisfy the financial obligations

the conference pursuant to the exit.

Okay.

Well, this was not any good for conference USA,

because they want more money.

They're trying to do all this Freedom of Information Act.

And they're trying to milk law tech for more money,

because they know law tech is back against the wall.

They're trying to get out, so they have a little leverage.

Well, apparently they've used that leverage up at least for right now,

because law tech and the University of Louisiana school system,

a university system, said enough.

We're going to take you to court and see where we get with that,

because again, all in the last few weeks,

when I reached out to Fox and Belancin,

you saw people, and I saw Craig Stevenson,

beat writer for South Alabama, mentioned it on Twitter,

that the schedule for the summit usually comes out March 1st,

and it wasn't coming out.

It did not come out.

People reached out to me, where is the,

you know, where is the schedule?

And I said, well, you got conference USA and Louisiana Tech fighting,

and they're like, well, what's that about?

And you do one of those cash money memes or gifts, I guess,

in the case maybe.

And so that's where we are.

All right.

So again, we got six months, less than six months,

before the college football season kicks off,

and law tech is not any closer to peers to being in the sunbelt.

And at the same time,

the conference USA released the schedule.

They released law tech schedule for conference USA.

So they know who the out of conference teams are.

That's usually announced well in advance,

but they gave them a conference schedule.

So it's getting to the next level.

There is certainly a level of pettiness here.

I mean, shocking.

Although I'm not sure it reaches to the level of the NCAA

is suing Ole Miss for Trinidad Jamblest's eligibility.

I mean, come on.

What are we doing?

But nonetheless, it's close to that.

Because everybody just thinks this is going to happen,

and you just, you know, squeeze a little bit more money.

Okay.

We were a little bit late telling you, okay.

But no, it's now, again, March.

And again, these things happen fast.

All right.

The baseball season just started.

And yet, by this weekend, we're a month into it.

Right.

That out of conference schedule on the weekend is done this week.

Boom.

Sunbelt starts next weekend.

So it moves fast.

Right.

We're going to blink.

It's going to be April.

And then it's going to be May.

And all of a sudden, we're looking at RPI now.

But all of a sudden, we're looking at, you know,

national and regional hosts.

And, you know, all of a sudden it's going to be the NCAA

tournament.

And then we're in summer break.

And then we got media days.

Like Glontek is officially going to join in July 1st.

And about three weeks later, four weeks later,

they're going to media days.

It's the last week of July.

So things are going to move fast.

But that's where we are.

And, you know, really good job.

Again, by Malcolm Butler of the Lincoln Paris Journal.

That's a good job finding that lawsuit.

So we'll see where it is.

But we absolutely have some courtroom drama.

I'm not sure if this says when we're going to get something

from the judge.

Let me see at the end here.

I don't believe it has that in there.

They're going over the whole dealings with Glontek

in conference USA.

Kind of back and forth.

All right.

Maybe I'll put this in the show notes.

But it's the Lincoln Paris Journal dot com.

All right.

So let's see if we get some sort of decision.

I mean, maybe the judge does give something pretty quickly.

But then you're going to bet that conference USA is going to appeal.

So we'll see where we go from there.

Okay.

Let's take a time out.

We'll come back.

Somehow Southern Miss advances.

I watch the game.

I still don't know other than Tony Quix.

All right.

They beat J.M.U.

But wait till you hear these statistics don't match up.

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Okay.

All right.

So we do have a JMU who took down the Cajuns on Wednesday.

I mean, you go on vacation, you don't get weekends off.

You can never keep track of the days.

All right.

And so that was an odd ballgame because either JMU was up by like 12 or the Cajuns

made a run and wouldn't go away.

They eventually won it by 15 points.

Okay.

I thought JMU was going to take down Southern Miss.

Southern Miss finished up their last ballgame was outstanding.

They played South Alabama as tough as anybody in the Sunbelt played South Alabama this year.

And that was in Mobile.

And so JMU had early control of this ballgame.

I'd gotten home from work right as the ballgame was tipping off.

And full like JMU was in control.

And then they weren't Southern Miss led by two and a half, 35, 33.

So the Miss wins this ballgame 86 to 80.

And that score is much closer than the game was because it was like a 12 point game very late.

All right.

But some of these statistics just don't match up.

JMU shot 52%.

Southern Miss shot 45%.

Field goals were three point field goals.

Each team made four.

The difference I guess is that the free throw line, there's the big difference.

Southern Miss was 28 or 34.

JMU 16 of 23.

Huge difference in that case.

JMU had 23 fouls called Southern Miss had 18.

That's not that big of a difference.

But they made, in fact, Southern Miss made more free throws than JMU attempted.

There is the big difference in the ballgame because rebounding is about the same 36 to 32.

That's not a huge advantage one way or the other.

Second chance points were about even.

JMU had much more bench points and a few more points in the paint.

But again, very odd ballgame that again, Southern Miss, again, that six points spread is not indicative.

That's a big word on a Friday morning.

Indicative of this game, not being very close in the second half.

With, I mean, a minute, 11 to go.

It was 81 to 69, Southern Miss.

So they're not going to lose a 12 point lead late like that.

In fact, with 45 seconds left to go, it was 83, 71.

And then they started making some threes and you start missing some free throws.

And a 12 point game with 45 seconds left to go is a six point game at the end.

So no harm, no foul there for Southern Miss.

In terms of the stats and it was a good, you know, it's a good job by Southern Miss.

In this one, Tillie Quicks, 31 points.

Again, those 15 out of 15 free throws.

There's your ballgame.

And he played all 40 minutes.

All right.

Again, for those who don't know and haven't mentioned it lately or much at all.

I was a 13th man on a 12 man JD basketball team.

But the last thing we all did was.

After we practiced and after we ran sprints, we shoot free throws.

Right.

Wasn't the middle practice.

You got to shoot the free throws at the end of the game when you're tired.

And so for him to make 13 out of 15 free throws, playing all 40 minutes, really impressive.

All right.

Tvars had a 17 and Benet had 11.

All right.

Not the greatest of all games.

Four out of 10.

But he was three out of three from the free throw.

Pretty good.

For J.M.U.

Bradley Douglas had 18 points.

Cliff Davis had 19 points.

And a new off had 11.

All right.

But again, just odd statistics.

The biggest difference was the free throw line.

As Southern Miss takes down J.M.U. 86 to 80.

All right.

We're not waiting.

Unfortunately for the Arkansas State Georgia Southern game, which has tipped off.

But moving forward, let's see what we got here.

So you do have Southern Miss is going to take on Texas State.

And this will be very interesting because Texas State fit seed is a dominant team at home lost one time.

That's it.

I think they Detroit.

I now got a look.

All right.

I know they beat South Alabama at home, but they've lost one time at home all season.

Not such a great team on the road.

I know this is a neutral court.

And during the week, there's just not a whole lot of fans in Pensacola.

What can you do?

All right.

But it'll be interesting to see it.

So far, we have not had a situation where at least on the men's side,

where someone has played and knocked off a team that had not played.

Right.

The cases it played and.

Jam, you knocked them off, right?

Oh, do you had played Georgia Southern knocks them off?

All right.

So we're all we're still there's been no upsets.

I guess it's easier way to say saying that.

All right.

So we'll see what happens moving forward.

You do have, again, Arkansas State and Georgia Southern.

The winner of that game gets South Alabama.

All right.

So we'll see where that goes moving forward quickly.

We do have to give props to the lady Jaguars.

What a great ballgame defeating a Texas State 69 59 trailing 29 to 24 and half.

As, you know, men's college basketball is the only basketball that doesn't have quarters.

International as quarters, women's as quarters, high school sports as quarters.

Women's NCAA basketball has quarters, the pros have quarters.

The only ones who doesn't have quarter are the guys in the NCAA.

It's crazy.

So I'm not used to that.

But the men or but the women here come out in the second half and totally dominate in the third quarter.

They scored 24 points in the first half.

They scored 25 in the third quarter.

That is in sanity.

They hung on as Texas State made a push and closed the gap.

But South Alabama pulled away at the end, winning 69 59.

And how about Tamara Ortiz, a season high 22 points.

She is 12 a game.

She scored a season high 22 in this ballgame as they will advance.

Let me see if we can find quickly.

Who they are taking.

I'm probably should have done that.

They get Marshall.

I didn't know that.

All right.

They get Marshall Friday at 1130.

So that is central time.

So it'll be 1230 eastern time.

All right.

All right.

And I did know that.

I tweeted that out.

All right.

So congratulations to South Alabama.

You know, what are they calling it?

They're calling it stairway to seven.

They're halfway home.

They're halfway home.

They have.

They have won three ball games and see they'll have a few more to go.

See if they can do it.

This would be their fourth game in four days.

Having said that.

The three starters.

There are three leading scores who were suspended.

They got the game off.

They're all coming back today.

They're going to play today.

So these girls are going to be rested.

At least some of them.

So it'll be interesting to see how that goes.

All right.

As I mentioned at the beginning of the show.

Final weekend of out of conference baseball weekend series.

It's not as great as matchups as there have been.

Although there are three big series.

Some will fill me in on ones that I don't think are big as these.

But we do have South Alabama's got a big series.

Cajun's have a big series.

And coastal Carolina has a big series.

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All right, Dave Sholes locked on some belt.

Your team every day.

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All right.

So baseball wise.

It was another pretty good week.

So they're mistaking down.

Mississippi State.

Shipped up a little against the nickels we get it.

Arkansas State beat.

A lot tech twice.

And the Cajuns beat LSU.

That's good stuff.

All right.

So if you want to go over the RPI right now in the conference,

it's Southern Miss is still number one in the RPI despite tripping up against.

Despite tripping up against nickels.

All right.

So Southern Miss is number one.

Says the Cajuns are 14.

Because I thought I saw that they were 15.

Nope.

They were 14.

All right.

They moved.

Some of us have played on Thursday afternoon because when I got home,

they were 15.

All right.

No matter.

But they're still right where they were.

They were at they dropped to 17 for not playing.

And then they went up to 14 after beating LSU.

You do have Arkansas State is 42.

How about there are top 50 team.

Georgia State is 87.

Amazing.

All right.

Texas State 77.

Troy having a really tough schedule but only five and seven.

They're 89.

All right.

That's outstanding.

South Alabama.

10 and three.

They're 11.

We'll see if they have a chance to move up with their law tech series.

Even like ULM.

191, although they have lost a couple.

They're 80.

They're eight and seven.

So we'll see what it is.

It's the final weekend before we kick off conference play.

And again, it's going to be a good one.

I had the schedule here.

So again, there's only a couple of highlighted series that we need to go over.

I'm we're going to tell you who everybody's playing.

But the big ones and please fill me in if I am overlooking somebody.

The big ones are, you know, East Carolina is at coastal Carolina.

All right.

So that's a rematch, if you will, of the regional final.

Okay.

So that's a nice series.

We'll see if coastal Carolina can, you know, straighten out the ship.

Because they just have not had a good season and that's mostly due to injuries.

Okay.

So that is a huge series.

You do have the Cajun's going to Dallas Baptist.

I did see the voice of the Cajun's Jay Walker.

Try to tell people that the DBU series is bigger than the LSU game.

The only reason it's bigger is because it's three games.

Don't don't try to, you know, give that.

Come on.

The LSU game is is bigger.

All right.

It just is the LSU.

If they turn things around a little bit, which everybody thinks they will,

but maybe they won't, but if they do, they're going to have a top 20 RPI.

And the Cajuns get the benefit as we talked about that.

I'm not sure Dallas Baptist is going to have that.

All right.

We'll see.

So it's only bigger because there's three games instead of one.

But don't let anybody catch it.

That LSU game was huge and they played it in front of 5,700.

Most of them were Cajun's fans.

And so they got to see what they wanted.

And then the other one is Louisiana Tech taking on South Alabama.

Seems like the guys over at Sunbelt City could not have big fans of South Alabama.

And maybe they haven't played anybody yet.

Is that a thing they played South Carolina upstate.

They beat Nichols.

They did take two out of three from the College of Charleston.

They did beat Southeastern, got hammered by Tulane.

And then they did take three from West Georgia.

They run rule UAB.

All right.

So maybe they haven't quite played anybody.

Let's see what those RPI ranks are overall.

South Carolina upstate 118.

Nichols 142.

Charleston 171.

Southeastern 114.

Tulane 203.

West Georgia is 299.

UAB is 13.

All right.

So that's nice.

Okay.

Louisiana Tech, which I think was in the 20s.

A minute ago is 54.

We'll see.

All right.

Because I think Louisiana Tech, that's why I picked Southern Miss to win the series.

I'm not going to sit here and tell you I picked them to sweep it because sweeping is hard in baseball.

And it was on the road.

But Southern Miss had been battle tested.

I guess you could say Louisiana Tech is battle tested because they played Southern Miss.

They didn't beat them, but they played them.

So we'll see what happens.

All right.

It seems to be going in the wrong direction for Louisiana Tech.

But South Alabama's offense is really good.

And the weekend pitching has been very, very good.

So we'll see what happens there elsewhere.

So those are the three big series.

Right.

East Carolina, coastal Carolina.

Cajuns at D.B.U.

And South Alabama hosting a lot tech.

Elsewhere, that number one ranked squad in RPI.

Southern Miss hosting North Alabama.

Arkansas State is on the road to oral Roberts.

ULM taking on former Sunbelt foe UT Arlington.

Troy hosting Maryland, Maryland getting a lot of Sunbelt play this year.

Texas State hosting future Pac-12 2.0 opponent Washington State.

Georgia Southern taking on Tennessee Tech.

Marshall hosting St. Bonaventure.

Remember, I'm going to see Marshall next weekend.

It's supposed to be warm or maybe wet in the future.

So we'll see what happens, but they're playing three o'clock on Tuesday

and 11 a.m. on Wednesday.

I happen to have those days off.

I didn't even have to ask them off.

You know, it's going to be a good year when those things like that happen.

And then.

Let's see.

Charles Charleston Southern is at Georgia State.

J.M.U. hosting East Tennessee State.

App State is on the road to Presbyterian.

And.

Old Dominion is hosting a UConn.

You can see how it goes this week.

And of course, we will talk or this weekend.

Of course, there is some midweek games.

I think the Cajuns have a five game week is what I thought I heard on TV.

But.

I mean, you have some.

You got some nice series.

App State is hosting coastal.

Southern misses at Arkansas State.

And the Cajuns hosting South Alabama.

That is a way to kick off the opening weekend of the conference play.

That is going to be outstanding.

All right.

Meanwhile, we will find out what happens in basketball before we get to that part.

And who will be.

The conference champion.

And so far, there's been many more upsets in the women's mostly South Alabama.

Take care of that.

Then there has been in the men's up until at this point.

Not going to ruin the score of Arkansas State.

Georgia, we just haven't seen any of that as we're going to bet.

All right, we will report on the Arkansas State.

Georgia Southern ballgame in other morning.

So I do apologize, but it is what it is.

Thank you for tuning in.

We are doing a little bit more social media trying to get it on TikTok,

Instagram, Facebook, Twitter.

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And we're trying to get to that 3,000 mark on the subscriber base.

So it would be a big help if we could show the powers to be that the podcast is growing.

So thank you so much.

Looking forward to the basketball this weekend.

Looking forward to the baseball this weekend.

And we'll be following.

See if South Alabama's run continues into the weekend.

They do get marshal.

The lady Jaguars do get marshal.

1230 Eastern time.

1130 Central time on Friday.

So again, thank you so much for tuning in.

Really appreciate it.

Have a great weekend.

Please be safe.

And we'll talk to you again on Monday.

You've been watching Lockdown Sunbelt.

Your teams every day.

Please have a great weekend.

And again, we'll talk to you again soon.