2016 Recap

2016 has come and gone, and now we take a look back at the ups and downs in Warhawk Athletics, calling out the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

- Tournament Runner-Up for Men’s Basketball - Just four seasons removed from winning a pair of Sun Belt Conference games, Head Coach Keith Richard saw the fruits of his labor by leading the ULM Men’s Basketball program to the title game of the Sun Belt Conference Tournament. Though they fell in the final minutes, the season saw the Warhawks with their second straight 20 win season and into the post season with an appearance in the College Insider Tournament (CIT).

- Post Season for soccer - For the first time in program history, the ULM Women’s Soccer advanced to the Sun Belt Conference Tournament. Though they fell 2-0 in the opening round to Little Rock, first year Head Coach Keyton Wheelock, who also won coach of the year honors, looks to be the right leader that can make soccer one of the hot, up-and-coming sports on the bayou.

- Viator era begins with win – First the first time ever, the Human Jukebox of Southern University invaded JPS Field at Malone Stadium. The Jaguars never posed much of a threat to the home-standing Warhawks, but the game showcased a different style of football at ULM, led by first year Head Coach Matt Viator.

- Roberts among Nation's Best - Softball's Rochelle Roberts ended the season 4th in the nation in batting average at .483. While she suffered an unfortunate end to the season missing the last 12 games, she returns to lead the Warhawks her Senior year in the upcoming season.

- For the second straight year, Warhawk Baseball was absent from the conference tournament. The 2016 season also extended the streak of losses to Louisiana-Lafayette with the Cajuns sweeping ULM. The streak now stands at 17 straight with the last Warhawk victory coming in a 17-0 victory to close out the 2012 regular season.

- Women’s basketball limps along – ULM’s women’s basketball program continued to limp along in 2016, winning just 9 games in the calendar year. Lopsided losses have come at the hands of Nicholls State, Louisiana Tech, and Grambling State in non-conference action, but recorded back-to-back wins at home to close out the 2015-16 season over Georgia Southern and Georgia State.

- The Curse of the Chief - Back-to-back blow out losses, amounting to 110-27 score, and a string of injuries that saw a true freshman getting reps at QB. All of this with a season finale that no one saw, the Chief's curse continued to pop up and remind everyone of the past.

- Louisiana wins, ULM loses – The long name-game battle was surrendered by ULM President Nick Bruno with his approval of University of Louisiana-Lafayette to use Louisiana for all athletics branding efforts. While the move means media outlets will now recognize the ULM branding efforts, the Monroe based campus now has the outside prospective of being a satellite campus of the supposed Lafayette flag-ship, contrary to state law that makes LSU as the state’s lone flag-ship university. Lost in all of this was the notice to stop Louisiana’s Indians in the mid-1990s.

- Perception is everything- with a pair of audit findings for the athletic department, the outside perception is that the Warhawks are broke and a mess internally. Regardless of the actual state, athletics needs to take on a better poker face to advance the program's direction.

- Too broke to play - an email surfaced from ULM Athletic Director Brian Wickstrom to the other conference ADs looking for someone to pick up the future home game versus New Mexico. The reason? Wickstrom felt the ULM fans couldn't afford the ticket prices to an additional game.