Awesome 80s Era – The Cardinals, The Mailman, Joe and More

Joe Dumars

At the turn of the decade, Lamar was on top of the Southland Conference mountain with players such as Mike Olliver and B.B. Davis leading the Cardinals to championships and postseason success from 1979 through 1981.

Opening the ‘80s with an appearance in the NCAA “Sweet Sixteen” under head coach Billy Tubbs, the Cardinals didn’t miss a beat with five more consecutive postseason appearances under new leader Pat Foster.

The decade also saw the recruitment and development of two game-changing players for the league, Joe Dumars and Karl Malone, both who would go on to be among the all-time NBA greats.

Dumars became only the second player in Southland history to be named first-team all-conference for four years, and he “bookended” his career with the 1982 freshman of the year award and the 1985 player of the year honor. Now the president of basketball operations for the Detroit Pistons, where he was a first-round draft choice and won two NBA titles as a player, Dumars finished his McNeese career with 2,607 points, second all-time in the Southland.

The Malone era of success at Louisiana Tech brought an unprecedented level of national media and fan attention to the school and Southland than at perhaps any other time. With his catchy “Mailman” nickname, Malone and his teammates scratched success in the 1984 NCAA tournament with a win over Fresno State, and parlayed that into prominent national rankings and a “Sweet Sixteen” run in 1985. Like Dumars, Malone was a NBA first-rounder and became one of the league’s most dominant power forwards with the Utah Jazz, earning a spot on the NBA’s Top 50 all-time team and winning gold medals with the U.S. Olympic Teams in 1992 and 1996.

Foster’s Lamar teams kept rolling with an 80-game home win streak, a pair of Southland tournament titles, two NCAA trips and four NIT appearances.

McNeese State also garnered an NIT appearance in 1986, and Arkansas State also played a rare postseason game against Arkansas, falling to the Razorbacks in the 1987 NIT, 67-64.

The Southland Conference tournament debuted at the Beaumont Civic Center in 1981, and Louisiana-Monroe (1986), North Texas (1988) and McNeese State (1989) all gained their first postseason championships during the decade.

In addition to Foster’s stellar coaching mark of 134-49 in his six Lamar seasons, Louisiana Tech’s Andy Russo tallied an outstanding 122-55 record from 1980-85, McNeese State’s Glenn Duhon won more than 100 games in the decade, and Louisiana-Monroe’s Mike Vining was just embarking on his record-setting coaching career.

Membership changes at the end of the decade arrived with the departures of Louisiana Tech, Arkansas State and Lamar (returned in 1998) and the additions of Northwestern State, Sam Houston State, Stephen F. Austin and Southwest Texas State.

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