THIBODAUX – McNeese would like to forget about its last two basketball games.
 
But before the Cowboys wad up the paper and toss those games out, head coach Dave Simmons will focus on the poorly played losses against Northwestern State, and most recently, New Orleans, in hopes of pinpointing where things have gone wrong before Saturday night's 6:30 game at Nicholls.
 
"I think it's pretty obvious," said Simmons. "We're turning the ball over too much and not hitting open shots."
 
The Cowboys have turned it over a total of 38 times in the two games while making just 38 percent from the floor – 24 percent from 3-point range.
 
Meanwhile, the two opponents have combined to knock down 54 percent of their shots including 53 percent from long range and have scored 41 points off of turnovers.
 
McNeese lost both games by a combined 32 points.
 
Now the Cowboys must regroup, refocus and find that team that dominated an entire 40 minutes against Central Arkansas 14 days ago.
 
"We'll get to the bottom of it," said Simmons. "But now we have to go to Nicholls who has a pretty big team, so we'll have our work cut out for us. We're can't turn the ball over like we've done and we have to knock down our open shots."
 
Nicholls (10-11, 3-5 SLC) are tied with the Cowboys (6-13, 3-5) and three other teams with five losses on the league season. The Colonels have dropped two straight and five of their last six games, but have lost just one game at home (7-1) on the season.
 
The Colonels had two players score 21 points in Thursday's 83-80 loss at Houston Baptist with two others scoring 10 or more.
 
For the season, Nicholls is led in scoring by forward Ja'Danté Frye's 16 points per game. Former leading scorer, DeAndre Harris (18.1) was dismissed from the team two weeks ago for a violation of team rules and policies.
 
McNeese has two players averaging in double-figures, led by Jamaya Burr's 10.8 average and followed by Kalob Ledoux with a 10.5 mark.
 
Saturday's game will be broadcast on the McNeese Radio Network (Cajun Radio 1470/1290 AM and CajunRadio.com).