HAMMOND – Southeastern completed a regular-season sweep over McNeese on Thursday night by way of a 91-86 win in Southland Conference men's basketball play.
 
The Lions stepped up their play in the second half, shooting over 60 percent from the field to rally from a 40-34 McNeese halftime lead.
 
The loss dropped the Cowboys record to 9-16 overall and 3-5 in league play while the Lions improved to 13-12 and 5-3. McNeese will visit Northwestern State, a seven-point loser to HBU on Thursday, on Saturday at 3 p.m.
 
Southeastern used a 12-4 run midway through the second half to take over, knocking down over 65 percent in the second half and 54 percent for the game.
 
McNeese shot well for the game, hitting 51 percent (35 for 69), but second half turnovers were costly and helped Southeastern capitalize on the errors.
 
"We became very disconnected at the end of the first half," said Aiken. "(The score) It was 40-30 and from that point, we gave up 61 points in the next 20, 20 ½ minutes. They took advantage of us. They scored at a really high rate.
 
"I thought our game plan was on point the first half. The second half, we did not execute very well on the defensive side."
 
Christian Shumate led the Cowboys with 23 points. Harwin Francois added 15 behind a career-high five three-pointers made. Johnathan Massie scored 11 and Brendan Medley-Bacon added 10 to go along with seven rebounds.
 
Gus Okafor paced SLU with 24 points while Jalyn Hinton and Keon Clergeot each scored 18. Joe Kasperzyk added 15.
 
McNeese led 40-34 at the half, using a 10-0 run late to pull ahead of the Lions.
 
It was a back-and-forth contest for most of the first half that saw 10 lead changes and eight ties. SLU held its largest lead of the half at 21-15 following a Kasperzyk layup but the Cowboys scored seven straight, capped by a Medley-Bacon layup and-1 to give McNeese a 22-21 lead with 7:28 to play in the half.
 
SLU regained the lead following a 3 then a Shumate dunk tied things up at 24-24. Francois sank a 3 for the Cowboys to put them back on top at 30-28 with 3:11 remaining, and after the Lions tied things up, McNeese rolled off 10 straight behind another Francois trey and a Collin Warren fast-break 3 to give the Cowboys a 40-30 lead.
 
Southeastern scored four straight to end the half with the Cowboys leading by six.