Dave Simmons arrived in Memorial Gymnasium on Tuesday a tad late.
“Been watching the last 10 minutes of that Nicholls (State) game,” he said.
His McNeese State team, which will try to snap a three-game losing streak tonight at Incarnate Word in San Antonio, rallied from an 18-point deficit and got to within two in the final minute before ultimately losing, 78-74, on Saturday.
The Cowboys (6-14, 3-6 Southland Conference), plagued by 54 turnovers in that three-game skid, did not turn the basketball over for the final 9 minutes of that game, spurring the rally.
“Trying to stay positive and don’t think about the negatives, always the positives,” Simmons said. “I’m trying to be positive in everything that we do. Show them all the good things we’re doing on the court instead of when we’re missing something. We’re trying to get in there with a positive attitude.”
What ails them changes weekly. The two games preceding Nicholls were an old bugaboo — the inability to shoot the basketball. Both losses, to New Orleans and Northwestern State, saw the Cowboys shoot below 40 percent.
Saturday, the team shot 51 percent. It turned the basketball over 16 times — 11 in the first half — for its undoing. Kalob Ledoux, the hotshot freshman whom Simmons inserted to score at will, had six of those 16 turnovers.
In its last three games, McNeese has committed 54 turnovers. Teams have turned those into 61 points.
“The thing about it is the kind of turnovers we’re having,” Simmons said. “Nobody’s pressing us to make the turnovers happen. It’s all in half-court situations. It’s mental ability, mental focus and that’s what all our turnovers are. That’s the frustrating part.
“We’re too far along in the season to be having those.”
Positivity can only carry so far. If the season ended Wednesday, McNeese would not qualify for the SLC tournament, a surprising freefall for a team that looked so promising following a 2-0 start to conference play.
Simmons took a brief break from the positivity push to make his team aware of this fact, hoping such blunt truths will refocus them for the second half of play in a conference that remains virtually wide open.
“Already covered that position,” Simmons said when told of his team’s standing tournament-wise. “We can flip this thing. We have four games at home, it’s a tough stretch, but they’re at home. But if we can just come out and salvage a split on this four-game road (trip), we can flip it.”
The Cardinals (10-10, 5-4) have won four straight.
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