LAKE CHARLES – The McNeese Cowboys continue their four-game home stand on Saturday afternoon when they host Houston Baptist in national TV at the McNeese H&HP Complex.
 
Tip-off is scheduled for 3:30 and will follow a women's game that begins at 1 p.m. Both games will air live on ESPN+.
 
McNeese (6-13, 2-4 SLC) will be looking to bounce back from a 74-71 loss at the hands of Southeastern Louisiana last Saturday. The Cowboys, who were off from action on Wednesday, used the bye week to work on some areas that needed attention.
 
"Bye weeks are always tricky," said head coach Heath Schroyer. "We tried to concentrate on ourselves, on Monday in particular. Wednesday we started talking about Houston Baptist a little bit but really tried to hone in on what we think are some of our deficiencies."
 
Schroyer said the Cowboys worked out on Monday, had Tuesday off, then back to work on Wednesday to prepare for an HBU team that has dropped five straight games, all by single digits and three of those by five points or less.
 
"I'm very impressed with them," said Schroyer about the Huskies (5-12, 1-5). "(Ian) DuBose is an all-league guy and his averaging almost 20 points a game. (Edward) Hardt, the big kid in the middle, he's a problem.
 
"Two things that I'm really impressed with them and I think they do really well is that their transition offense is really good. They have four guards and they push the ball really well. Also their offensive rebounds. They have 65 more offensive rebounds than their opponents."
 
Rebounding is something the Cowboys will be looking at doing a better job. Against SLU last week, McNeese was minus-11 boards in the game while pulling in just eight of the offensive glass.
 
"That's been our Achilles heel all season," said Schroyer about the rebounding area.
 
McNeese is expected to start the same five for the third straight game – Kevin Hunt, James Harvey, Trey Touchet, Roydell Brown and Sha'Markus Kennedy.
 
Brown has scored 20 or more points the last two games and has jumped to the top as the team's scoring leader with a 12.8 average. He's coming off a 24-point game against SLU, three days after sinking a career-high of 25 in a win over Nicholls.
 
Harvey is averaging 12.4 points a game while Kennedy is at 11.9 and Malik Hines is coming off the bench to contribute with a 10.3 average.
 
DuBose tops the Southland Conference in scoring with a 19.3 average and is hitting 21.2 points in league games only.
 
Saturday's game will be the 23^rd all-time meeting between the two schools with the Cowboys holding a 16-6 advantage. The teams have battled to a 4-4 mark since HBU joined the conference in 2013.
 
McNeese won both meetings last year.