Two days before her team opened Southland Conference play at Northwestern State, Kacie Cryer sat at the scorer’s table in Burton Coliseum, rattling off the different lineup combinations and rotations she has at her disposal.
“Man,” the first-year McNeese State coach finally summarized, “there’s a lot of fun things you can do with this team.”
That fun stems from options. Cryer had few in Saturday’s 68-63 win against the Lady Demons, where the Cowgirls’ frontcourt was plagued by foul trouble and the backcourt did not shoot with any form of consistency.
She inserted Hannah Cupit, the senior role player who played 20 minutes in just one game preceding this one. Dede Sheppard was forced to play most of the second half, to the point of near exhaustion.
Cupit went off for a career-high 19 points, hitting half of her team’s 3-pointers. Sheppard drained another — the fourth and final trey of the game — with six minutes left to quell a Northwestern State rally that stretched the Cowgirls’ deficit to five.
“My goodness,” Cryer said of Cupit, “in the first half she was the reason we stayed in that ballgame. We were in some major foul trouble, we didn’t really have a post. Let’s be honest, that one right there is a tough one. They fought through, they were getting tired.”
Cupit did whatever she pleased, whether taking defenders to the rim off the dribble or shooting the open looks on the perimeter. The Lady Demons focused their defensive scheme selling out on her classmates, starters Victoria Rachal and Amber Donnes, leaving gaping driving lanes.
Caitlin Davis noticed.
Davis, the speedy freshman Cryer implores to drive to the rim, got into the lane at will on an afternoon where the Cowgirls backcourt shot just 21 percent from 3-point territory.
Davis attempted six of her 10 free throws in the first half, exposing a vulnerable Lady Demons interior that neglected to defend without fouling. In all, McNeese shot 28 free throws as the visiting team.
“I just knew it was the beginning of a new season, the record was 0-0 today,” Davis said. “Our record from the past didn’t happen and I know we had to come in today and prove to everyone this title is ours.”
A next step comes Monday, when Stephen F. Austin — one of three teams picked to finish ahead of the Cowgirls in the preseason — comes to Burton Coliseum for its Southland Conference opener and the first Cowgirls home game in nearly a month.
The Ladyjacks are, statistically, one of the conference’s most well-rounded teams. They sit in the top-three of both scoring offense, scoring defense and field goal percentage. McNeese must defend without fouling, which it neglected to do Saturday.
If it does not, there’s a bountiful bench ready.
“Anybody can come in and score, it’s such anybody’s team,” Cupit said. “We all play so well together and if one person is doing well, everyone is so for it. It’s just an awesome time.”
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