LAFAYETTE – Louisiana-Lafayette used a 20-0 run over a 6:16 span to open up a big first half lead on McNeese and never looked back as the Cajuns posted a 97-64 win over the Cowboys in men's basketball action on Wednesday night.
 
The loss dropped the Cowboys to 1-6 on the season. They'll next play at Indiana at 5:30 on Saturday evening in a game that will be televised by the Big Ten Network.
 
ULL evened its record at 3-3 after beating the Cowboys for the fourth straight time in Lafayette.
 
McNeese trailed 22-17 with 11:17 to play after a Stephen Ugochukwu score. The Cajuns then rolled off 20 straight points and a 26-4 run over a span of 8:17 to build a 48-21 lead with just over three minutes to play in the half.
 
AJ Brown came off the bench to spark a late rally for the Cowboys as he scored seven of McNeese's 10 points in the final 3:00 and in a 10-3 run as ULL went into the break leading 52-31.
 
Brown led the Cowboys with 11 points while Shaun Johnson and Stephen Ugochukwu each scored nine.
 
Shawn Long led the Cajuns with 24 points and 11 rebounds in 23 minutes of work. Jay Hedgeman added 13 points while Jay Wright and Kasey Shepherd each scored 10.
 
The big stat of the game ended up being the 34 points ULL scored off of 20 McNeese turnovers.
 
"For a team that didn't press us, they got 34 points off of turnovers," said head coach Dave Simmons. "We didn't take care of the basketball. We had too many turnovers. Anytime you play a game like this with 20 turnovers and they end up with easy baskets, that's where a lot of their transition points came from."
 
The Cowboys made just 23 of 71 from the field for 32.4 percent and was 7 of 22 from long range for 31.8 percent. ULL sank 38 of 74 for 51.4 percent for the game and hit 7 of 28 for 25 percent from 3-point range.
 
McNeese did a good job on the glass, pulling down 16 offensive boards, four more than ULL, and 40 for the game. ULL finished with 46 total rebounds.
 
Ugochukwu led the Cowboys with nine rebounds while Johnson added six.
 
After a Craig McFerrin layup cut the lead to 54-33 with 18:40 to play in the game, the Cajuns scored seven straight to build a 30-point, 63-33 lead with 16:41 to play. McNeese was able to get the score under 30 points just a couple of times the rest of the way and scored the game's final seven points to keep it from being the worst loss against the Cajuns in the history of the program (36 points).
 
Following Saturday's game at Indiana, McNeese will return home next Wednesday against LSU-Alexandria in the second half of a doubleheader with the Cowgirls.