LAKE CHARLES – Christian Shumate, who started in his 100^th game as a McNeese Cowboy on Monday night, scored 17 of his game-high 19 points in the final 17 minutes of the game and added a season-high 14 rebounds to lead McNeese to a 67-51 win over East Texas A&M to remain in control atop the Southland Conference standings.
 
The double-double was his fourth of the season and 38^th in his career while his 14 rebounds moved him past the great David Lawrence for third all-time in school history with 1,034.
 
McNeese improved to 19-6 overall and 13-1 in league play while maintaining a three-game lead in the conference standings with six games to play. East Texas A&M dropped to 3-22 and 1-13.
 
DJ Richards Jr. added 12 points behind four three-pointers for the Cowboys while Joe Charles added 11 points and seven rebounds. Quadir Copeland dished out six assists with eight points and recorded his 200^th career assist on the night.
 
Scooter Williams Jr. led the Lions with 16 points.
 
McNeese scored the game's first three points off a trey from Javohn Garcia then got a second 3 from Richards Jr. and a Copeland layup to grow the lead to 8-3 in the first 4:48. But then the staleness hit and the Cowboys would score just 14 points the final 15 minutes while missing 15 of their next 20 shots to end the half trailing 27-22.
 
The Lions took advantage of the Cowboys' misses by knocking down seven 3s in the half and once led by 11 with just under six minutes to play. From that point, McNeese went on a 7-0 run behind layups by T'Johnn Brown and Shumate, then a 3 from Garcia and a follow-up layup by Charles to cut the 11 points margin down to four. ETAM's Yusef Salih hit a 3 with 40 seconds to play to give the Lions the five-point halftime advantage.
 
McNeese was a different team in the second half in all phases.
 
Charles got the second half scoring going with a layup to cut the deficit to 27-24 but a couple of free throws by the Lions built the lead back to 5.
 
The Cowboys then scored the next 11 points, sparked by a put-back dunk by Shumate, one of his four Shu Slams for the game. Richards Jr. sank one of his three 3s of the half in the run and Copeland scored on a fast-break layup off a Garcia steal to put McNeese up 35-29 with 15:26 remaining and extended the run to 20-2 over the course of the two halves.
 
But it was Brown's steal off a Lions' inbounds pass where he called timeout as he was in mid-air going out of bounds, ignited the Cowboys from a 7-point lead with 11:16 to play, to a 15-point advantage just three minutes later.
 
The Cowboys sank nine of their last 10 shots and were 8 of 10 from 10 minutes on down. Included in that were makes on their last four three-point attempts.
 
McNeese finished the game shooting 45 percent from the field (26-58) after hitting just 28 percent (8-28) in the first half. The Cowboys were 9 of 20 (45 percent) from 3-point range and 6 of 10 at the free throw line.
 
ETAM shot 35 percent (17-49) from the field but was held to just 7 of 24 shooting for 29 percent in the second half. The Lions connected on 11 of 31 from long range for 35 percent, and made 6 of 7 at the free throw line.
 
McNeese held a 39-29 advantage in rebounds and turned the ball over 10 times, four in the second half.
 
The Cowboys will hit the road for the next two games, first at New Orleans on Saturday followed by a Monday night contest at Southeastern.
 
Postgame Notebook:
• Christian Shumate's double-double was his fourth of the season and 38^th in his career.
• The double-scoring game was Shumate's 87^th in his career while the double-rebounding game was his 46^th.
• With his 14 rebounds, Shumate moved into 3^rd all-time in school history with 1,034, surpassing the great David Lawrence (1,026 from 1977-80).
• Quadir Copeland handed out 6 assists, giving him 204 in his career.
• DJ Richards Jr.'s four 3s gives him 141 in his McNeese career, six away from moving into the top 10 all-time in school history.
• The win was the 18^th-straight home Southland Conference win for the Cowboys, a streak that started in the final regular season game of the 2022-23 season.
• McNeese is now 11-1 in the Legacy Center this season and 8-0 in home league games.
• Over the last two year, McNeese has compiled a 29-1 overall and 17-0 Southland home record under head coach Will Wade.
• The Cowboys are 31-2 overall in conference play the last two seasons.
• The win was the 399^th all-time Southland Conference win for McNeese.