After suffering a second consecutive loss Thursday night against Marshall, Texas State men’s basketball (10-10, 3-4 Sun Belt Conference) will now look to its next opponent, the Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin’ Cajuns (15-4, 5-2 Sun Belt Conference), on Saturday afternoon at Strahan Arena in San Marcos.  
Saturday’s matchup will be between the Sun Belt’s preseason top two teams. Louisiana-Lafayette has lived up to its preseason number one seeding as the Ragin’ Cajuns are currently sitting in third place in the Sun Belt standings and are only two games out of first place.
Louisiana-Lafayette is led by the Sun Belt Preseason Player of the Year junior forward Jordan Brown. Brown is the team’s leading scorer averaging 19.7 points per game on 56% shooting from the field and 33% from three. 
The Ragin’ Cajuns will come into Saturday’s matchup on a five-game winning streak but are 6-4 on the road indicating the team does not play its best ball outside of Lafayette. 
Texas State, on the other hand, has drastically fallen short of its lofty pre-season expectations thus far as the Bobcats are fifth to last in the conference standings. 
Despite career-high scoring performances from senior guard Drue Drinnon, freshman guard Jordan Mason and junior forward Nate Martin and winning the battle on the boards the Bobcats were unable to outlast the Thundering Herd late in the second half and fell 81-73. 
Louisiana-Lafayette leads the all-time series between both teams at 16-7 including a upset victory over the top seeded Bobcats 79-72 in the Sun Belt Tournament last season ruining Texas State’s hopes of punching a ticket to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1997. 
Saturday’s game will provide Texas State the opportunity to avenge last season’s bitter defeat and change the trajectory of it’s 2022-2023 season going forward. 
Tip-off is set for 4 p.m. Jan. 21, at Strahan Arena in San Marcos.