Cowboys give outstanding effort in 89-78 loss at Louisiana-Lafayette

LAFAYETTE – The McNeese men’s basketball team dropped its fourth game of the season to Louisiana on Tuesday night, 89-78. The Cowboys drop to 2-4 on the season.

McNeese would get the first four points of the night, but it would be at the 16:15 mark in the first half that Louisiana would start a 19-0 scoring run that would leave the Cowboys in the dust.

The Cowboys would end the first half with a 10-2 run, bringing McNeese within eight points of the Ragin’ Cajuns.

Trailing 36-28 at the half, both Jarren Greenwood and Stephen Ugochukwu each had eight points apiece. Ugochukwu also led the Cowboys with four rebounds in the first half.

McNeese was only shooting 32% from the field, missing all four attempts from beyond the arc.

“In the first half, we got down early- fought back and closed the gap. We felt good coming back in the second half, and despite shooting four threes all year, Malik Marquetti went five for six tonight” said head coach Dave Simmons

Halfway through the second half, McNeese would trail Louisiana by 17, but the Cowboys never gave up. Despite trailing by 20 or more points three times in the contest, McNeese would rally back to come as close as 8 points- dropping the game by only 11 at the final.

Ugochukwu would own the court tonight, earning his first double-double of the season. Ugochukwu dropped 20 points and 12 rebounds in the tough loss in Lafayette.

Three other Cowboys would hit for double-digits: Kalob Ledoux (18), Greenwood (15), and Jacob Ledoux (14).

In addition to Ugochukwu’s rebounds, the Cowboys would pull down 39 total rebounds, out-rebounding the Cajuns by seven boards. In the second half alone, McNeese would out-rebound Louisiana 23-12.

“I’m satisfied with our performance on the glass, to out-rebound a team with that height and strength is a success- 14 offensive rebounds of our own and holding them to only 9. We just have to shoot better and prevent the turnovers” Simmons said.

McNeese gave up 16 turnovers in the loss, allowing Louisiana to score 28 points from the Cowboys mishaps.

“Give them credit, they are a very good basketball team. We may have lost the game tonight, but we had a lot of small victories on the court” Simmons said.

Jacob Ledoux added two steals to his stat book, both Cajun turnovers resulted in baskets for the Cowboys as well. The sophomore now has 15 on the season, the best amongst all Cowboys. J.Ledoux would shoot the most efficiently of all Cowboys tonight, going six for six form the field and draining his only three-point attempt as well.

“I’m proud of all that the guys did tonight, they’ve stopped worrying about the outside distractions and got back to just playing the game of basketball… and if we continue to play with the same intensity and fight we played with tonight, we’ll have no problem competing down the stretch” said Simmons.

The loss is the Cowboys third consecutive against the Ragin Cajuns, who hold the series in their favor 58-35 after the win. Louisiana has not dropped a regular season non-conference match at home since mid-December in 2012.

The Cajuns capitalized off of a fiery performance from beyond the arc, hitting 11 of 26 attempts from three-point territory. Transfer Malik Marquetti would lead the Louisiana offense with 17 points, followed by three Cajuns in the double-digits as well.

McNeese will be traveling next to North Texas (Dec.9) before heading to North Carolina Central (Dec.14) and Pittsburgh (Dec.16).