Running pregame layup lines 30 minutes before its game against UL-Lafayette, McNeese State debuted black warmup shirts not worn in its first six games. Assistant coach Preston David wrote the shirts’ acronym before the season, hopeful his team would not need its motivation.
“Demanding Excellence From Everyone No Selfish Expectations” ran vertically down the shirt, each word’s first letter connecting to spell “defense.”
The game began and the shirts disappeared.
So did their overriding message.
McNeese permitted a 28-1 run across the final six minutes and 29 seconds of the first half — a span where the Cowboys did not make a shot — blowing that 14-point lead in a 92-72 loss to the Cajuns on Saturday.
“Everyone started thinking of themselves, stopped running the offense for one and wasn’t looking for the open man so we could score the ball like we were in the first half,” Kalob Ledoux said. “That’s how it got away from us.”
Playing a third consecutive game without veteran forward Stephen Ugochukwu, the undersized McNeese group was manhandled on the glass.
UL-Lafayette grabbed 19 offensive rebounds — seven in the first half — and, astonishingly, outrebounded the Cowboys 48-14. Cajuns forward Bryce Washington had 15, out-rebounding the entire McNeese team on his own.
“Just lost control,” said Lance Potier, who had six of McNeese’s 14 boards. “We have to learn how to play a 40-minute game, man. Nobody came with energy in the first half and it didn’t carry over until the second half. It just made it bad, we weren’t supposed to lose by 20.”
Cajuns guard Jay Wright had a career-high 28 points and BYU transfer Frank Bartley had 21 as UL-Lafayette ballooned its lead as high as 23. McNeese point guard Jamaya Burr had 17 points, Potier had 14 and Kalob Ledoux had 12.
“We looked up at the score and we got a little nervous, little shaky,” Cowboys coach Dave Simmons said. “We didn’t defend hard enough that we did for those 13 minutes and we didn’t rebound the basketball.”
The game’s first ten minutes offered a fleeting, if not maddening, glimpse at the potential this team possesses but does not realize. Defensive rotations were crisp and hustle apparent. The Cowboys drained four of their first seven 3-point attempts, dishing eight assists on their first 11 made field goals. They led by double digits before the second media timeout.
A drastic size disparity invited the Cajuns to penetrate the lane. McNeese committed 12 personal fouls in the first half, permitting UL-Lafayette to shoot 18 free throws. The Cajuns made 15 and, at one juncture, the freebies were the Cajuns’ sole offensive output while coach Bob Marlin stewed at his team’s ineptitude.
“It’s kind of heartbreaking to see us play so well, the energy, the momentum we had,” Simmons said. “When Bob got after the officials pretty good (at the eight-minute mark of the first half), it really seemed like the momentum changed and they got every call they did going to the basket.”
Not until Wright’s 3-pointer with 3:22 left in the first half — a bucket that gave UL-Lafayette a lead it did not relinquish — did the Cajuns make a jump shot. They missed 10 of their first 13 field goals but were kept alive by McNeese’s proclivity to foul.
LaBarrius Hill, who five days ago produced his best statistical game of the season in Ugochukwu’s absence, was whistled for his second foul after just six minutes of play and sat for the rest of the half. Kalob Ledoux, too, played just five minutes of the first half.
“We’re still in progress and we weren’t full speed,” Simmons said. “I think we can play with just about anybody once you get out of the guarantee games. But it’s disappointing. You’re up 13 at home and it should have been a game we should have built off that. But we went asleep for six minutes.”
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