HOUSTON – McNeese will play its next two basketball games away from home as it attempts to qualify for the Southland Conference postseason tournament which gets underway in less than two weeks.
 
The Cowboys (8-20, 5-10) will visit HCU (9-19, 6-9) on Thursday night at 7 and will then travel to Southeastern (15-13, 9-6)) on Saturday at 3:30.
 
McNeese is currently in a four-way tie for seventh place in the standings with UIW, Lamar and New Orleans. The top eight teams in the 10-team league qualify for the March 5-9 tournament that will take place in the Legacy Center.
 
The Cowboys got some bad news on Wednesday when it was announced that starting point guard Trae English will miss at least the HCU and Southeastern games after suffering an injury in Tuesday's practice.
 
Johnathan Massie is expected to step into the point guard role while Dionjahe Thomas could see his fifth start of the year. Massie is coming off a career-high 20-point game against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and is averaging 9.7 points and 2.4 assists per game.
 
Christian Shumate continues to lead the Cowboys with 13.6 points and 9.1 rebounds per game while Zach Scott is averaging 11.4 points. Scott moved into a tie for No. 10 on the school's all-time three-pointers made list with 136 made in his McNeese career.
 
With English's injury, McNeese is down to seven scholarship players available.
 
HCU defeated McNeese 90-81 back on Jan. 14 at the Legacy Center.
 
Thursday's game will be the 32^nd meeting in the series with McNeese leading 22-9.