SAN ANTONIO – McNeese State has become all too familiar with playing away from home the last three weeks but has still yet to grasp ahold of that first Southland Conference road win in three tries.
The Cowboys will look to chalk up that win on Monday when they visit Incarnate Word at 7 p.m. in San Antonio.
McNeese (7-10, 1-5 SLC) is coming off a 93-67 loss at the hands of Northwestern State on Saturday while UIW (10-5, 2-3) won 77-61 at Abilene Christian.
"It's another team that likes to score a lot of points so our job is to do what we can to slow them down," said head coach
Dave Simmons.
Despite the 26 point loss to the Demons, the Cowboys shot extremely well from three-point range after hitting a season-high 11 treys in 22 attempts.
The play of NSU's Jalen West (25 points) and Zeek Woodley (23 points) provided a stellar 1-2 punch that kept the Cowboys out of their game plan.
UIW also has a crew of scorers that the Cowboys will attempt to lock down on, including conference scoring leader Denzel Livingston who's averaging 22.9 points a game, and Jontrell Walker who is fourth with a 17.3 average. Kyle Hittle is the third Cardinals' player ranked in the top 10 in the league in scoring with a 15.4 average as the eighth highest mark.
As a team, the Cardinals lead the league with 85.4 points a game as well as in field goal percentage at 48 percent.
The Cowboys are led by
Desharick Guidry who on Saturday became the first player in school history to record 1,000 points, 700 rebounds, 100 steals and 100 assists in a game after he dished out two assists against the Demons.
He leads the team and is ranked fifth in the conference in scoring with a 17.1 average, and tops the conference and is third in the nation with 11.6 rebounds per game.
Kevin Hardy, who led the Cowboys with 14 points against NSU, is seventh in the league in rebounding (6.9), 18
th in scoring (12.4), and second in steals (2.3).
McNeese won last year's game by an 87-72 score in Lake Charles.
Following Monday's game, the Cowboys will return home on Saturday to face UNO at 6 p.m.
Monday's game will be carried live on Cajun Radio (1470/1290 AM) and online at CajunRadio.com.
