RICHMOND, Virginia – The McNeese Cowboys, aka, The Bayou Bandits, rolled into the Siegel Center for Monday night's college basketball season opener against VCU and swaggered out with an impressive 76-65 win over the Rams.
 
The victory kick-started the Will Wade era for McNeese basketball although Wade was not in attendance due to serving the first of a 10-game suspension. Instead, assistant coach Brandon Chambers, a 2011 VCU graduate, took the reigns and guided the Cowboys to their first win over a Division I team to start the season since the 1995-96 season.
 
"I thought our guys competed hard and came out ready to fight from the jump," said acting-head coach Brandon Chambers, a 2011 VCU graduate. "We hit some shots early then VCU made a run. But we were able to withstand it and fight it. VCU is tough. They're going to win a ton of games."
 
VCU led early 6-1 before McNeese went on a 12-0 run to take a lead it would never relinquish.
 
Graduate transfer Shahada Wells led three McNeese double-figure scorers with 23 points while Christian Shumate added 18 points and 13 rebounds. Transfer DJ Richards netted 17 points behind 5 of 6 shooting from three-point range.
 
"They (Wells and Richards) were tremendous," said Chambers. "Coach Wade put this group together and told them they don't have a chip on their shoulders, but boulders instead. Hada is a veteran and can do pretty much anything on the floor. DJ is a 6-0 or 9-0 run waiting to happen. He hit some tough 3s in the first half."
 
The Cowboys connected on 46 percent (27-59) of their shots from the field and 47 percent (8-17) from behind the arc.
 
McNeese also took tremendous care of the ball, turning it over just five times in the game and only twice in the second half while the defense forced the Rams into 14 turnovers, scoring 13 points off those miscues.
 
"Ball security was a big concern late because they ramped up the pressure," said Chambers. "But it doesn't matter what the coaches draw up, at the end of the day it all comes down to the players doing all the little things right, and we did that tonight."
 
Things didn't start as drawn up for the Cowboys with a turnover and five straight missed shots through the first 3 ½ minutes of play, but a driving layup by Javohn Garcia with the Cowboys trailing 6-1 began a run of 12 straight points on five straight made buckets, capped by Richards' second 3 of the contest to make it 13-6.
 
Later, VCU cut the McNeese lead to 18-13 after a Toibu Lawal dunk then the Cowboys answered with another run, this one a 14-2 spurt that included a couple more Richards' 3s. Cameron Jones got into the 3 game with a baseline jumper to give McNeese its largest lead at 41-21 with 2:21 to play in the half. VCU followed with an 8-0 run to end the half and cut the Cowboys' lead to 41-29.
 
McNeese held a double-digit lead for most of the second half but cut into the gap with three minutes to play. That's when Shumate took over and scored on three physical drives, one a dunk that made it a 72-62 lead with just over two minutes remaining.
 
"He was huge," said Chambers of Shumate. "We challenged him to showcase what he can do. A lot of those drives he scored on were physical with a lot of contact. Down the stretch, he did what he does."
 
Antavion Collum knocked down two free throws with 45 seconds left to complete the scoring.
 
Max Shulga led the Rams with 22 points while Zeb Jackson added 14. The Rams sank 41.5 percent (22-53) from the field and 31 percent (11-36) from three-point range. VCU held a slight edge in rebounding, 36-34.
 
The Cowboys will open their home season on Friday afternoon at 4 when they host the College of Biblical Studies.