Sharp-shooting Brown, Gray pace Nicholls to 92-82 win in home finale

Brown and Gray can sometimes seem like drab colors, but not when they wear Colonel red.

Rob Brown scored 28 points and Michael Gray 25, both career highs, in shooting Nicholls past the University of Incarnate Word 92-82 on Monday night on Broussard Court at Stopher Gym.

The Colonel sharpshooters were sizzling from 3-point range. Brown was 8 of 8 from distance and Gray was 6 of 6.

“It’s just a lot of repetition. I feel like me and Mike, we’re in the gym a lot. So I feel like it just showed today, that’s all,” said Brown

For Gray, it didn’t take long for him to realize he was in the zone.

“When you see the first two going, I think you want to put that third up. When the third one goes in, you kind of know what type of night you have,” Gray said.

“They both have a pro-like mentality. They both get in the gym every morning. They’re really good with their rehab time. To see them reap the benefit today, I’m extremely proud,” Nicholls coach Tevon Saddler said.

The win kept Nicholls in contention for the second spot in the Southland Conference standings. The team that finishes second, along with the first-place team, gets a two-round bye in the SLC’s postseason tournament straight into the semifinals.

In other games Monday night, McNeese edged Lamar 58-56, and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi defeated Houston Christian 91-79.

The results leave McNeese out front at 14-1. Nicholls and Corpus Christi are both 11-4. Lamar and Southeastern each are 9-6.

“Like Coach said, everything up to right now is what counts. Like Coach says, things are magnified down the stretch down in the conference and it’s just important. Winning is the most important thing to get in general,” said Brown.

When Gray and Brown combined to score eight of Nicholls’ 10 points to open the second half, it was merely an extension of what the duo had done in the first half.

Gray and Brown combined to score 27 of the Colonels’ 47 first-half points, in taking a 47-34 halftime lead.

To open the second half, Gray hit a jumper and IUW’s Dylan Hayman followed with a free throw.

After a dunk by Nicholls’ Mekhi Collins, Gray and Brown hit three pointers and the Colonels were up by 22 points, 57-35, less than four minutes into the half.

The biggest lead for Nicholls was 29 points at 83-54 when Byron Ireland scored on a layup with 8:47 left in the game.

Just when it looked like the Colonels were going to continue to build upon their lead, the Cardinals rallied back.

In slightly less than eight minutes, UIW outscored Nicholls 24-4. A layup by Sky Wicks on a fast-break basket with 50 seconds left in the game had narrowed the margin down to nine points at 87-78.

“I was proud of the way we came off the second half,” Saddler said. “We were able to come out, get a couple kills, three stops in a row. I wasn’t proud of the way we finished the game.

“One thing I always talk about throwing the first punch and throwing the last punch. The way we finished the game was very unacceptable. Like I tell them, just finding different ways to win, winning any college basketball game is hard, especially this time of year, especially in conference.”

That was all the short-handed Cardinals had left in the tank, eventually falling by 10 points. UIW was without several players who had been suspended following a postgame altercation with Texas A&M-Commerce a week earlier.

The game was the final in a Colonels uniform for seniors Quinn Strander, Jalen White, and Taylor Blanchard.

Strander, a hometown product of E.D. White, has fast become a rare breed in college basketball – a player who stayed all four years at one school. In his final game, he got the start, scored three points, and had three rebounds.

“For me, it’s just all the hard work we put in, all the relationships I’ve built since I’ve got here. So it’s a real good moment for me and the team,” Strander said of going out a winner in his final game.

It wasn’t just a win, but an important one.

“That’s definitely what we’re aiming for. We’re trying to get that second seed so we can have the double bye and just give it our all in the tournament,” said Strander.

Gray and Brown weren’t the only hot shooters for Nicholls. The Colonels shot 52.5 percent from the field (31 of 59), and 69.2 percent from 3-point range (18 of 26).

Oumar Koureissi was the only other Colonel in double figures with 14 points in 17 minutes of action.

UIW fell to 3-12 in the Southland and 8-20 overall.

Wicks led the Cardinals with 22 points, while Hayman added 21, T.J. Ford 12, and Josiah Hammons 10. UIW was able to play only seven players in the game.

Gray and Brown carried the scoring load for Nicholls in the first 20 minutes, combining for 27 of the team’s 47 points as Nicholls built a 47-34 lead at halftime.

Nicholls maintained a small lead early in the first half and even trailed by one point at 15-14 on a Davante Dennis free throw at the 12:44 mark of the opening period.

The Colonels were leading 18-17 when Gray hit a pair of 3-pointers to give Nicholls its biggest lead to that point of seven points at 24-17 with 9:04 remaining before halftime.