March 8, 2008

Box Score

THIBODDAUX-- McNeese State's men's basketball team fell 75-63 to Nicholls State here Saturday. The Colonels led 38-25 at the half.

McNeese played without Kleon Penn for the final 39 minutes of the game. Penn went down with an ankle injury in the first minute of the game and never returned. The Cowboys didn't have their best shooting night as they were 16 of 29 from the field including 5 of 23 from three-point range.

John Ford led the Cowboys with 17 points, John Pichon added 11 and Jarvis Bradley was held to seven.

The loss left the Cowboys with a 7-9 record but with other results from around the conference, McNeese will enter the Southland Conference tournament as the No. 6 seed and will take on Sam Houston State in the first round of the tournament next week in Katy, TX.

Sam Houston finished third in the conference standings. The two teams will play at 2:30 p.m. on Thursday in the opening round.

"That's the way we went into this ball game and with the way the other scores fell, that's the way that we came out of it," Cowboy head coach Dave Simmons said.

"With Kleon out it changed the complexion of the game. We didn't shoot the ball very well and we couldn't stay in the game. Jarvis never really got going and we didn't do what we needed to do.

"But, we're still playing and we're only three wins away from being on top of the world. We're capable of winning three games in the tournament."

As for the loss to Nicholls State, the Colonels just hit the shots when it counted. They made six of 18 three point shots and outshot the Cowboys in every department. Five of their players scored in double figures with Adonis Gray leading the way with 19 points.

Bradley was held to single digit numbers while Diego Kapelan was scoreless, missing all seven shots that he took (five from three point range). Pichon also had a team high seven rebounds. Aldryan Wardell came off the bench for nine points and three rebounds and P. J. Alawoya had seven rebounds. Also, Adrien Garr had seven points and four rebounds in reserve and Stephan Martin scored six points.

McNeese made only 16 of 29 free throws, five of 23 three point shots and 21 of 61 overall field goal attempts.

The Cowboys had taken an early lead even with Penn out of the game. And, they were up by seven points at 12-5 a little more than four minutes into the game. Nicholls took the lead for good at 19-18 following a 14-6 run and held on from then on. The Colonels largest lead was by 21 points with 16:22 left in the game.

Usually McNeese has the most points in the paint but on this night, Nicholls scored 32 points there compared to the Cowboys' 16. -30-