(Photograph by Donny Crowe of Louisiana Tech’s Ra’Shawn Langston on his way to a career-high 15 points off the bench in the Bulldogs’ 62-50 victory over preseason C-USA favorite Western Kentucky.)

RUSTON — In the men’s basketball Conference USA race, Louisiana Tech has proven it has a chance.

They could win the league and would still probably have to win the league tournament in March in Frisco, Texas to make March Madness — we’ll see if the league’s schedule-the-final-weeks-of-the-season-on-the-fly experiment will work, and hopefully it’ll help — but the Bulldogs in the past 44 hours have proven they’re contenders.

In the preseason poll — which is just a poll but still — Marshall was picked to finish second; Tech beat the Herd, 89-80, in OT in the STAC Thursday night. Western Kentucky was picked to finish first, and the Bulldogs beat the Hilltoppers, 62-50, Saturday night in the STAC.

Sure, the games were at home. It’s only late January. But in the muddled C-USA waters, Tech is in the mix and has just proven it can beat two of the league’s better teams.

Let’s defined “muddled” real quickly. Two teams in CUSA have two league losses, three have three, and four — including 15-7, 5-4 Tech — have four. So there’s that.

Also, Saturday, UTSA at home trailed Old Dominion by 17 with 3:50 left — and won. UTSA in the league is 6-2, ODU is 6-3. Also, Southern Miss at home beat Marshall 101-51 Saturday. Beat them by 50?!? Yes. USM is 4-5 in the league and Marshall left Huntington, W.V., Wednesday at 5-1 in the league and is now 5-3. I know, right?!

That said, the Bulldogs are in position to make some hay while the sun shines, whatever that means. Tech is at FAU (11-9, 2-5) Thursday and at FIU (13-7, 4-3) Saturday. The ‘Dogs have just one game the next week, on the road in Hattiesburg. Then UTEP (1-6 in the league) and UTSA visit Ruston the next week; UTSA is the current co-leader but has to come to the STAC.

Then CUSA reshuffles the deck for the regular season’s final two weeks; 1’s will be playing 1’s and 2’s will be playing 2’s to give the league’s best teams a chance at a higher RPI going into the tournament; maybe, finally, the league will get two teams into the Big Dance.

Bottom line is that in CUSA, it’s a horserace. And Tech’s in the middle of it.

At halftime Saturday, Tech looked to be out of it.

In a ho-hum game, the Bulldogs trailed WKU — a team that has beaten West Virginia and St. Mary’s on the road and perennial Big 10 power Wisconsin —  by seven, 28-21. DaQuan Bracey, who Thursday night against Marshall had tied his career high for single-game scoring with 25 points, had been held scoreless for the past 41 hours or so, which unfortunately included that first half against WKU.

He scored the first points of the second half on a drive, finished with 17, and Tech outscored the Hilltoppers, 41-22, in that second half, and that was sort of that — although it wasn’t as easy as the final score makes it look.

Tech won it with defense, no question: WKU didn’t score a field goal for the final 7:30 of the game. But the score was only 54-49 Tech with 1:55 left when Bracey made some sort of drive with his right hand, switch to the left hand, scoop-it-in semi-impossible bucket that had to demoralize the Hilltoppers, who were hanging in there despite just getting a free throw to fall now and then down the stretch.

There were all sorts of semi-stories in this one. WKU’s stud big man Charles Bassey– this Hilltopper bunch is a long, long team, and at 6-11 he is the longest — had back-to-back 17-rebound games coming into the game against Tech and was held to 8 rebounds and 16 points. Tech also kept going inside in the first half, which led to two Bassey fouls; he played only 29 minutes.

With Tech’s lone senior, Derric Jean, in sweats with an injury, junior transfer Ra’Shawn Langston is seeing more playing time; he scored a career high 15 off the bench Saturday and canned four straight key free throws in the final 35 seconds.

Sophomore forward Anthony Duruji just missed a double-double with 9 points and 11 rebounds.

The best example of Tech’s all-around effort Saturday night might have come from sophomore guard Amorie Archibald, who has struggled with his shooting lately. He had 10 assists, turned it over just once and had a block, two steals, and seven points in 35 minutes.

There’s more to winning games than scoring the ball, and defense — all about desire and work and attitude and a trust that defense is really “a thing” — is something you can play well every night. That’s what’s won the last two games for the Bulldogs.

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(Photograph by Donny Crowe of Tech’s DaQuan Bracey in familiar territory — by the rim.)

RUSTON — Marshall’s Thundering Herd led for just 47 seconds against Louisiana Tech Thursday night in the Thomas Assembly Center, but unfortunately for the Bulldogs, most of those seconds were in the final minute when Tech found itself down by a point with 55 seconds left and down by 2 with only 12 seconds left.

The Bulldogs (14-7, 4-4 C-USA) had an answer both times, then outscored the Herd (12-8, 5-2) in overtime 17-8 to win it, 89-80.

It was Tech’s frenetic guard DaQuan Bracey, who equaled his career high in scoring with 25 points, who tied it up in regulation with five seconds to go. After the Herd’s Jannson Williams hit a three-pointer with 12 seconds left to give the visitors a 72-70 lead, Bracey went coast-to-coast on one of those drives that drive you crazy, one of those “Don’t do that! Oh … good!” drives when he’s in traffic and battling toward the hoop.

“The only thing that was going through my mind was get to the basket,” said the basketball-ambidextrous Bracey. “Don’t waste any time and get there as soon as possible just in case I do miss so that we could maybe get another opportunity with a rebound.”

Great but … how does he make those?

“Been battling as a small guy his whole life,” said Tech coach Eric Konkol said of his 5-11 guard. “He’s used to it.”

The junior from Baltimore added two big steals in OT that led to points.

For all Tech’s end-of-game and OT heroics, it was defense that won the game. Usually is.

The Bulldogs held the Herd to 26 points in the first half — their lowest first-half output of the year — and held star Herd guard Jon Elmore — he’s currently tied for the program lead in both career three-pointers and assists — to only 8 points, only the third time this season he’s scored less than double digits.

It was more subtle if you weren’t paying attention, but Tech’s JaColby Pemberton had just as big of a game as Dancey; he earned his third double-double of the season with a career-high 18 points and 11 boards.

Get on over to Thomas Assembly Center Saturday when the Bulldogs play league preseason favorite Western Kentucky, winners at Southern Miss Thursday night,  at 4 p.m.

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