McNeese Headed to the NCAA Tournament After Winning Southland Conference Championship
There are a few Power Five teams in NCAA basketball this year that you will find that are better than the McNeese Cowboys. The Cowboys finished their season last night with an overall record of 30-3 and a conference record of 17-1 as they defeated the Nicholls Colonels 92-76 in the Southland Conference Championship in Legacy Center in Lake Charles, LA. Head Coach Will Wade, who spent the last five years of his career coaching the LSU Tigers, has turned the Cowboys basketball program completely around in one year as last season McNeese was one of the worst teams in the Southland Conference finishing with a final record of 11-23 and a 6-12 record in conference play. The things they have accomplished this season are incredibly impressive for a team that has a brand-new coaching staff. However, no one is confident the journey is over with Coach Wade, who has experience coaching college basketball at a high level and is the 2024 Southland Conference Coach of the Year, leading this team. Let’s take a look at how the Cowboys won the Southland Conference Championship!
From the very beginning of this one, McNeese looked to easily be the better and more prepared team for the game as they would start the game up 7-0. Their great play in the first half would give them the ability to head into the locker room at halftime with a 16-point lead, 48-32, over the Colonels. The second half would be much more back and forth as both teams would score 44 points in the half. Unfortunately for the Colonels though they had to make a run in the second half to make back up the 16-point deficit they were facing from the first half if they wanted to win this one and they were never able to accomplish that in this game as they never led at any point on Wednesday night. Graduate guard Shahada Wells led the Cowboys in this game with 27 points, while junior shooting guard Javohn Garcia had 19 points and sophomore shooting guard DJ Richards Jr. added 16 points.
As McNeese heads into the NCAA tournament, they will most likely be a thirteen seed and while they will without a doubt have a tough opponent on their hands, no one is counting them out no matter who they play in the first round. Many may argue that McNeese has not played a hard level of competition this season in the Southland Conference and while that is true that have beat well known basketball schools such as Michigan and VCU this season. Not to mention they have only lost three games all year and two of those games were decided by three or fewer points so no team that McNeese has faced off of against this year has been able to prove that they are way better than the Cowboys. This year will be McNeese’s first NCAA tournament appearance since 2003 and considering they have won their past eleven games who is to say they can’t make it twelve or more?
