For a second time in three games, McNeese State will embark on a road trip to play a team that knows its season is over.
Sam Houston State, a team with three wins, is fine with this realization. Starting a season 0-17 forces such contentment.
Still, the Bearkats must play out the remainder of their basketball schedule — the Cowgirls are next up in Huntsville, Texas, at 5:15 p.m. today — with the lone discernible goal to regain the slivers of pride lost in that putrid start and spoil a tournament-bound team’s seeding prospects.
“They’re so much better defensively and shooting the ball much better than they were early,” said first-year Cowgirls coach Kacie Cryer, a close friend of Sam Houston coach Brenda Welch-Nichols. “Brenda has them playing hard and scrappy and it’s another road game against a team that’s hungry to finish out the season on a positive note. So I told the kids we have to be hungrier, a hungry mentality, a toughness mentality.”
The Cowgirls know they will at least play one postseason game. Sitting at 7-9, the Cowgirls are three games ahead of ninth-place Houston Baptist in both the wins and loss column. Two games remain in the conference regular-season schedule.
The Huskies (6-20), at 4-12 in conference and two games out of eighth place, must win their final two games to keep their faint hopes alive. A road trip to Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (10-17, 6-10) and a visit from second-place Abilene Christian (20-8, 14-2) make this scenario unlikely. They, too, are playing with little to lose.
Cryer’s aware, the victim of what she termed HBU’s “best game all season” last Wednesday, a 72-68 McNeese loss. The Huskies score 54.7 points per game and shoot 43 percent as a team.
They hit 47 percent and scored 72 against the Cowgirls, who allowed backdoor cuts and reverse layups all evening, not a trademark of what has been an otherwise adequate defensive team.
Transition defense lacked, too, raising questions about fatigue on a team on which six players — two of which are true freshman — play 21 or more minutes. The two seniors in this category, Amber Donnes and Victoria Rachal, each played fewer than 20 minutes a game last year.
“I’ve got young kids playing that don’t know the grind,” Cryer said. “We’ve played 27 games and, yeah, a lot of these kids aren’t used to the grind of this and played this much. We’re trying to change it up, do different things with them, but we have to finish strong. I told them they have to have something in there, deep inside, to finish this because everyone is feeling the same way.”
Against TAMU-CC two days later, McNeese recovered from a seven-point halftime deficit to take a four-point lead late in the third quarter. It squandered the prosperity, losing 77-66, again without the one player who could command the floor and make a crucial shot when necessary.
It’s the similar shortcomings Cryer’s bemoaned all season, those she hopes can get rectified in two weeks’ time.
“It’s just little mental mistakes we’re making, constant growing and teaching,” Cryer said. “These kids are positive and we’re teaching them ‘Guys, we’re right there.’ From what it looks like, we’re making Katy, so it’s 0-0 when you get in the tournament. You have to get everything fixed now, it’s why I feel good because that’s what we’re preaching to them.”
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