The Louisiana–Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns men's basketball program represents intercollegiate men's basketball

College basketball

College basketball most often refers to the USA basketball competitive governance structure established by the National Collegiate Athletic Association . Basketball in the NCAA is divided into three divisions: Division I, Division II and Division III....

 at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette

University of Louisiana at Lafayette

The University of Louisiana at Lafayette, or UL Lafayette, is a coeducational, public research university located in Lafayette, Louisiana, in the heart of Acadiana...

. The school competes in the West Division of the Sun Belt Conference

Sun Belt Conference

The Sun Belt Conference is a college athletic conference that has been affiliated with the NCAA's Division I since 1976. Its football teams participate in the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision , the higher of two levels of Division I football competition . The Sun Belt has member institutions...

 in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association

National Collegiate Athletic Association

The National Collegiate Athletic Association is a semi-voluntary association of 1,281 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States...

 (NCAA) and play home games at the Cajundome

Cajundome

The Cajundome is a 13,500 seat multi-purpose arena in Lafayette, Louisiana. It is home to the Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns basketball teams of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Lafayette Wildcatters of the Southern Indoor Football League and the Louisiana high school basketball state...

 in Lafayette, Louisiana

Lafayette, Louisiana

Lafayette is a city in and the parish seat of Lafayette Parish, Louisiana, United States, on the Vermilion River. The population was 120,623 at the 2010 census...

. Bob Marlin

Bob Marlin

-External links:*...

 is entering his second season as head coach.

Conference affiliations

• 1914–1925: Louisiana Intercollegiate Athletic Association
• 1925–1941: Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association
  Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association
  The Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association was one of the first collegiate athletic conferences in the United States. Twenty-seven of the current Division I FBS football programs were members of this conference at some point, as were at least 19 other schools...
  
  
• 1941–1947: Louisiana Intercollegiate Conference
• 1947–1971: Gulf States Conference
• 1971–1982: Southland Conference
  Southland Conference
  The Southland Conference is a college athletic conference which operates in the south central United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division I for all sports; for football, it participates in the Division I Football Championship Subdivision...
  
  
• 1982–1987: Independent
• 1987–1991: American South Conference
  American South Conference
  The American South Conference was in the NCAA. The conference existed from 1987 to 1991.-Membership:*Arkansas State *UCF *Lamar *Louisiana–Lafayette *Louisiana Tech *New Orleans...
  
  
• 1991–present: Sun Belt Conference
  Sun Belt Conference
  The Sun Belt Conference is a college athletic conference that has been affiliated with the NCAA's Division I since 1976. Its football teams participate in the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision , the higher of two levels of Division I football competition . The Sun Belt has member institutions...
  
  

Death Penalty

Southwestern Louisiana was found guilty of numerous violations after the 1972-73 season, including academic fraud, recruiting violations and improper financial assistance. The most serious violations involved five instances where players were allowed to compete despite having high school GPAs that predicted a college GPA lower than the NCAA's minimum of 1.6 at the time. On one occasion, an assistant coach forged the principal's signature on a recruit's high school transcript. The NCAA responded by barring the Ragin' Cajuns from competing in the 1973-74 and 1974-75 seasons.

Major violations

The NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions penalized the University of Louisiana at Lafayette for major violations in the men's basketball program. The violations included ineligible participation by a men's basketball student-athlete. These infractions resulted in the committee finding that the institution failed to monitor its athletics program. Penalties for the violations included placing the university on two years of probation, a vacation of records and forfeiture of championship revenue, among other sanctions. The Committee on Infractions found that a men's basketball student-athlete relied on correspondence courses taken through another institution to meet his percentage-of-degree and grade-point average requirements in order to maintain satisfactory progress for eligibility during the 2004 spring semester and 2004-05 academic year. NCAA rules stipulate that student-athletes cannot use correspondence courses taken from another institution to meet these requirements. The 15 hours of correspondence work were used to certify the student-athlete as eligible for 2004-05 and he competed throughout the season, which included an NCAA tournament game. The report also notes that the school's compliance coordinator at the time, as well as the director of academic services and registrar, all "failed to catch the obvious error." "The committee is dismayed that the institution failed to comply with a simple, unambiguous bylaw and, as a consequence, allowed a star student-athlete to compete for a full season and half of another," the report states.