LAKE CHARLES – Top-seeded McNeese will face 4th-seeded Northwestern State in Tuesday's Southland Conference Tournament semifinal round.
Tip-off is schedule for 6 p.m. at McNeese's Legacy Center. Tickets are available on Southland.org but are going fast. The game will also broadcast on ESPNU.
The Demons defeated Texas A&M-Corpus Christi 66-63 in the quarterfinals on Monday afternoon to advance to face the Cowboys.
McNeese swept the season series against NSU this season, winning 92-69 in Natchitoches and 65-50 in Lake Charles. The Cowboys have won four straight in the series and eight out of the last nine meetings.
McNeese is 1-2 all-time against the Demons in the conference tournament. Tuesday's meeting will be the first in the postseason since the 2022 tourney, an 82-78 McNeese second round win.
The winner of the game will play in Wednesday's 4 p.m. championship game on ESPN2.
McNeese (25-6) will be looking to win its second-straight Southland Conference Tournament championship for the first time in school history while capturing the league's automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament. NSU (16-15) is making its 24th tournament appearance and is in the semifinals for the second time in the last three years.
Tournament Notebook:
• Making a league-record 35th appearance in the postseason tournament and has compiled a 29-32 overall record.
• Third straight season to play in the semifinals.
• The Cowboys are 12-1 in the Legacy Center this season and 9-0 in home conference games.
• McNeese has won 10-straight overall at home and 19-in-a-row in home conference games dating back to the 2022-23 regular season finale.
• 30-1 home record over the last two years.
• The Cowboys set a new school record and tied a conference mark with its 19th Southland Conference win of the season at Stephen F. Austin on March 3, matching SFA's record that was set in the 2019-20 season.
• McNeese is currently on a 9-game winning streak, tied as the 4th-longest in the nation.
• The Cowboys' .950 conference winning percent is No. 1 in the NCAA.
• McNeese has won 17 or more league games four times in its history, the most of any conference team past or present and is one of only two teams to win 17 or more multiple years (SFA twice).
• The Cowboys are 36-2 in conference play under head coach
Will Wade over the last two seasons which is the best conference record over two years in the NCAA.
• Wade is the conference's winningest coach in league games only in terms of winning percentage, now at .947, bettering the old record of .804 that was held for 51 years by McNeese's Bill Reigal.
• Non-conference schedule is ranked the 25th-toughest in the country.
• McNeese is 17-1 since January 1 of this year and 36-3 since January 1, 2024.
• McNeese has compiled an overall record of 55-10 over the last two seasons, setting a new school record for the most win over a two-year span... the old mark was 54 set by the 1956 NAIA national championship team, and the squad in 1957.
• The 55 wins over a two-year span are tied as the 2nd-most in Southland Conference history with Louisiana Tech's 55 wins in 1984 and 1985 when it had Karl Malone, and are 4 away from SFA's record of 59 set in 2013 and 2014.
• The Cowboys won their 400th all-time Southland Conference game at UNO on Feb. 15 to become the first team in league history, past or present, to win 400 conference games... McNeese now sits at 404 all-time league wins.
