Box Score KATY, Texas – McNeese's Kellon Taylor scored a career-high 22 points and the Cowboys used a 15-0 first half run to separate it from Northwestern State and en route to an 80-67 win in the first round of the 2022 Southland Conference Men's Basketball Tournament.
 
The Cowboys, the No. 7 seed in the eight-team field, will play third-seed New Orleans at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday in a second-round game at the Merrell Center here in Katy.
 
It was slow-going for the Cowboys through the first 5 ½ minutes of the game with McNeese going up against a Demon defense that it hadn't seen, but following the first media timeout and leading 10-9, head coach John Aiken and his staff adjusted and returned to action with back-to-back three pointers by Harwin Francois (9 points) and Trae English (12 points) to put the Cowboys up 16-9.
 
NSU got a basket from Carvell Teasett to close the gap to 16-11 and that's when the offensive gates opened for the Cowboys with 15 straight points while hitting 4 of 6 from the field during the run.
 
"I've got to give them credit (NSU)," said Aiken who has guided the Cowboys to their first tournament win since the 2015 first round. "The came out in a 1-2-2 zone, which we hadn't seen on film, so we didn't have any prepping for it to be honest. We just kind of did some stuff on the fly and ran out traditional 2-3 zone offense against it.
 
"We got Harwin (Francois) in to the game early to put another shooter on the floor which opened up the scoring, and then we were able to get stops."
 
Getting stops is what the Cowboys did while being able to score on the opposite end.
 
During the run, McNeese held the Demons to 0-for-6 shooting and two turnovers in five possessions and was able to rack up five kills in the half.
 
"We were able to string together some stops," said Aiken. "We had five kills, which are three stops in a row. We had five in the first half which allowed us to get out and convert offensively."
 
Christian Shumate, who led the Cowboys with 10 rebounds to go along with nine points, had a couple of emphatic dunks off of misses, one off a missed layup by Collin Warren and the second, just a minute later, off an English layup. The second one upped the Cowboys lead to 24-11 at the time.
 
The Demons cut a 21-point lead to 15 late in the half but McNeese answered with a driving Warren layup and then a three-pointer by Zach Scott (11 points) with four seconds to play to put the Cowboys up 43-23 at the half.
 
McNeese began the second half on a 5-2 run behind a Scott 3 and a Brendan Medley-Bacon dunk to give the team its largest lead at 48-25 with 18:37 to play. NSU chipped away and cut the margin to 17 points at 48-31 following a Jalen King jumper to extend a 6-0 run but McNeese answered with a couple of Taylor free throws then a turnaround jumper on the next possession to get the lead back to 21.
 
The Demons continued to chip away at the lead only to have a Cowboy put a halt to it.
 
With 7:36 to play, NSU's Kendal Coleman hit a bucket to pull the Demons to within 62-50, the closest they've been since midway through the first half. But Francois answered with a three-pointer to get the lead back to 15.
 
Then after Coleman made good on a jumper and free throw to cut the margin to 12 once again at the 6:31 mark, English and Taylor sank four straight free throws to get the lead to 16 points at 69-53 with 5:48 remaining. NSU wasn't able to get any closer than 15 points again until the final score of the game with four seconds to play to make it a 13-point Cowboy win.
 
McNeese finished the game hitting 50 percent from the field (29 for 58), 37 percent from three-point range (7 for 19), and 83 percent at the free throw line (15 for 18) including 11 of 12 in the second half.
 
NSU shot 44 percent from the field (27 for 61), 29 percent from long range (5 for 17) and 53 percent at the line (8 for 15).
 
The Cowboys held a 41-28 advantage in rebounding, including 11-8 on the offensive glass, and scored 18 second chance points.
 
With the win, the Cowboys won all three games against the Demons this season while beating them for the first time in the conference tournament (1-2). McNeese will play UNO for the first time in the postseason on Thursday night at 7:30.
 
Tickets for the game are available through etix (link on McNeese Athletics website). McNeese fans are asked to use code MCN22 at checkout when purchasing tickets.