THIBODAUX – McNeese continues to show improvement and trending in the right direction. That was evident on Wednesday night when the Cowboys went toe-to-toe with one of the Southland Conference's better teams in Nicholls before falling, 76-69.
 
The game saw 18 lead changes and six ties throughout, and the largest lead, nine points by Nicholls at 75-66, came with 27 seconds to play in the game.
 
"We played better and have made a lot of improvements in the last couple of weeks," said head coach Heath Schroyer. "We had a really good game plan and were just a couple of plays away. We played well enough to win, we just didn't capitalize on a couple of chances."
 
Nicholls connected on eight of its last nine shots and went on a 10-4 run with less than four minutes to play to escape with the win, its seventh straight, and improved to 10-5 overall and 7-1 in league play. McNeese fell to 7-9 on the season and 1-6 in the conference.
 
Dru Kuxhausen led the Cowboys with 17 points on 6 of 11 shooting, 3 for 8 at three-point range. KeyShawn Feazell collected his sixth double-double on the year with 15 points and 15 rebounds and A.J. Lawson added 12 points and a game-high six assists. Harwin Francois contributed with a season-high 10 points.
 
The Colonels' Ty Gordon led all players with 24 points, hitting 9 of 18 from the field and 5 of 12 from long range. Najee Garvin added 16 points for Nicholls while Kevin Johnson scored 15.
 
Both teams were nearly identical in shooting, McNeese hitting 28 of 61 for 45.9 percent while Nicholls knocked down 27 of 59 for 45.8 percent. The Colonels hit three more 3s and six more free throws than the Cowboys while McNeese held a 39-34 advantage in rebounding.
 
McNeese led 30-29 at the half and 55-54 with 8:55 to play following a Feazell layup. Nicholls answered with a couple of Gordon threes coming two minutes apart, the second giving the Colonels their largest lead of the second half at 68-62 with 4:08 to play until the 27 second mark.
 
A Feazell layup with 3:50 to play made it a 68-64 game, then a steal by Kuxhausen gave the Cowboys the ball back at the 3:23 mark. But McNeese turned it right back over and Nicholls responded with four straight points to go up 72-64 with 2:28 remaining.
 
A free throw by Gordon at the 1:08 mark made it a 75-66 game then Francois sank his second three of the contest for the Cowboys with 18 seconds to play to close the gap to 75-69.
 
Johnson hit one of two free throws with 11 seconds to play to cap the scoring.  
 
McNeese started the same five for the fourth straight game, the longest stretch of the season for the same five.
 
"We've solidified a rotation after dealing with injuries and COVID issues," said Schroyer. "We've gotten better now that we have settled in on a good rotation. You have to remember, we had no offseason training and no preseason practices and we were behind. But I'm excited where we're starting to trend. We're playing better basketball, executing at a higher level, and playing better defense."
 
The Cowboys will continue their five-game road swing on Saturday at Lamar at 4:30.