The Troy Trojans men’s and women’s basketball teams both earned Sun Belt Conference victories over teams from the State of Louisiana on Wednesday.

The Trojan men (16-9, 9-4) throttled the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns (8-18, 5-8) by a score of 74-56 on the road. Troy dominated in nearly ever facet of the game and led for the majority of the contest, leading by as many as 22 points in the contest. Troy held a 29-20 lead at halftime and outscored the Cajuns 45-36 in the second half.

Troy shot 46.4 percent from the field and held Louisiana to 40.8 percent shooting. The Trojans also won the rebound battle by an eye-popping 42-20 and outscored the Cajuns 14-4 in second chance points and 36-28 in the paint. Troy also forced 14 turnovers and scored 16 points off turnovers.

Thomas Dowd and Myles Rigsby scored 19 points each with Dowd earning a double-double with 12 rebounds and two steals. Rigsby also grabbed four rebounds and dished three assists. Victor Valdes came off the bench to score nine points, while Tayton Conerway chipped in with six points, seven assists and two steals. Mostapha el Moutaouakkil led Louisiana with 19 points.

“I’m thankful to the good Lord for this victory. Thankful for these guys. We did learn some lessons along the way,” Troy Coach Scott Cross said. “When we played together as a team and are connected – which I did feel we were connected tonight – we’re really good. Our defense was pretty solid for the majority of the game. Our rebounding was phenomenal.

“This guy over here, Thomas Dowd, was a warrior. He grabbed 12 rebounds and had 19 points. Marcus Rigsby had a phenomenal game, having six assists, zero turnovers and eight points. Myles had 19 points on nine shots, that’s really hard to do. He was a pit bull.”

The Troy men are now one game behind first place Arkansas State with the two sides meeting on Saturday in a huge regular season conference game, which will air on national TV on ESPN2 at 7 p.m.

On Wednesday, the Troy women (16-10, 10-3) earned an 84-71 win over the ULM Warhawks (9-15, 5-8) at home in Trojan Arena, their 14th straight win over ULM.

The two sides battled back-and-forth for much of the game with Troy leading 64-61 going into the final frame, but the Trojans owned the fourth, outscoring ULM 20-10 to pick up the win and move into sole third place in the Sun Belt behind Arkansas State and James Madison.

Troy had a solid shooting night, knocking down 33-of-67 shots and won the rebound battle 49-30. Troy also outscored ULM 36-34 in the paint. Troy forced 15 turnovers and scored 19 points off those turnovers.

“I see so much growth from the team. There’s a great bounce back from the MAC-SBC Challenge last game,” Troy Coach Chanda Rigby said. “We understand that we’re going down the stretch. There were six games left, and now there are five, and we want to grow in maturity and be able to play the hardest and just draw on our emotions of what it’s like to want it more than anybody else to win these last games.

“We can’t take any game or any quarter for granted. They held them to 15 in the first quarter and were focused on the defense, and then again in the fourth quarter, we held them to 10. So those are significant signs of growth. But I’m very proud of Khila, who went 5-of-5 from the field with only one turnover. She came off the bench and played perfect.”

Both Brianna Jackson and Zay Dyer earned double-doubles for the Trojans. Jackson totaled 16 points, 10 rebounds and three blocks, while Zay Dyer earned 12 points and 11 rebounds. Ashley Baez chipped in with 10 points, four rebounds and three steals. Shaulana Wagner also dished nine assists. Meloney

Thames led ULM with 26 points and Jakayla Johnson added 17.
Troy is back at home on Saturday for a matchup with Southern Miss at 3:33 p.m on Senior Night.