Colonels’ 20-win season ends with 92-76 loss to McNeese in SLC championship game

The Southland Conference championship game was a rehash of the regular season for Nicholls and McNeese State.

In two regular-season games, Diante Smith carried the scoring load for the Colonels, but the Cowboys defense didn’t allow any of the other Nicholls players to beat them. McNeese went on to build leads of 20 or more points in winning the two games by large margins.

Wednesday afternoon’s conference title game was similar. Despite 16 first-half points from Smith, McNeese built a 48-32 lead on its way to a 92-76 win on the Cowboys’ home court in Lake Charles. Smith finished with a game-high 33 points.

The loss ended Nicholls’ season at 20-14 – a 20-win season for first-year coach Tevon Saddler and his Colonels.

The win allowed McNeese to capture the regular-season and Southland title, and the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. The victory improved McNeese to 30-3 for coach Will Wade and his Cowboys.

Smith went into the championship game having averaged 20 points per outing against McNeese. In the first meeting in which the Colonels scored less than 50 points in a 74-47 defeat in Thibodaux, Smith had 13 points. Smith scored 29 in Nicholls’ 83-62 loss in Lake Charles.

The championship game was dissimilar from the previous encounters between the teams in the Colonels keeping the game closer in the second half than the regular-season results.

Nicholls and McNeese traded baskets much of the second half, but the Colonels could never seriously cut into the Cowboys’ lead.

The closest Nicholls could get in the second half was 12 points when a free throw by Jamal West made the score 81-69 with 4:11 left in the game.

Trailing by double-digits, the Colonels were forced to foul down the stretch. After Nicholls cut the deficit to 12, the Cowboys hit 9 of 10 free throws.

Two free throws by Shahada Wells gave McNeese its biggest lead of the game at 21 points, 92-71, with 1:37 left in the game on the way to the 92-76 final.

To go along with Smith’s 33 points, Rob Brown finished with 13 for the Colonels and West chipped in 11.

Wells had 27 points for McNeese. Javohn Garcia scored 19, D.J. Richards 16, and Christian Shumate 11.

The Colonels were 25 of 51 (49 percent) from the floor, including 10 of 27 (37 percent) from 3-point range.

McNeese was 27 of 44 from the field (61 percent), including 11 of 20 (55 percent) from 3-point range.

Because of the Colonels being forced to foul late in the game, McNeese was 27 of 35 from the free-throw line. Nicholls was 16 of 19.

The Colonels committed 11 turnovers, only two in the second half.

Nicholls turned the ball over against McNeese’s pressure defense, allowing the Cowboys to grab an early 7-0 on 3-pointers by Antavion Collum and Wells, along with a free throw by Garcia.

The Cowboys extended the lead to nine points before Nicholls rallied back.

Smith hit a pair of three pointers as part of a Nicholls run that allowed the Colonels to rally to within one point at 23-22.

With the McNeese defense not allowing the Colonels to drive to the basket, Smith kept his team in the game with 16 first-half points, mostly from long range. The rest of the Nicholls team combined to score 16 points.

The Colonels turned the ball over nine times in the first half and the Cowboys made them costly.

In a span of 2:20, the Colonels turned the ball over three times. McNeese turned them into a 3-pointer by Wells, an alley-oop basket by C.J. Felder, and a finger-roll basket by Mike Saunders to give the Cowboys a 14-point lead at 36-22 with 4:37 left before halftime.

Smith scored all but two of his first-half points over the first 13 minutes of the game. When cooled, the Cowboys extended their lead.

The Cowboys built their first-half lead to as many as 18 points with a slam by Byron Ireland making the score 48-32 at halftime.

Nicholls was 11 of 25 (44 percent from the field in the opening half. Smith was 5 of 10, with the rest of the Colonels a combined 6 of 15. Nicholls was 3 of 13 (31 percent) from 3-point range.

The Cowboys shot above 50 percent from both the field and 3-point distance. McNeese was 14 of 24 (58 percent) from the field and 7 of 13 (54 percent) from 3-point range.

McNeese had a 12-5 edge in points off turnovers. McNeese had 18 bench points, compared to two for Nicholls.