Colonels win home debut over Blue Mountain although Saddler displeased with first-half effort

In the end, it was an 86-56 win for Nicholls over visiting Blue Mountain Christian University in the Colonels’ home debut of the 2023-24 season Tuesday night at Stopher Gym.

It was the start that had first-year Nicholls coach Tevon Saddler concerned.

“I thought the first half, I preached to the group, I’m big on respect. I thought the first half we didn’t respect the opponent and I think that’s a recipe for disaster,” Saddler said. “It may not catch you this game but it’s going to catch you moving forward.

“We had a real intense conversation about respect at halftime and I was proud of the way they came out the first two minutes to stretch the game, but if you want to have success like we want to have success, it can’t take you a half or disrespecting your opponent, that’s not keys or help us have success.”

It was a message received by his players.

Coming out more aggressive to open the second half after leading 37-26 at halftime, the Colonels scored the first nine points of the second half.

After a layup by Rob Brown, Jamal West scored a pair of baskets in the paint before Jalen White hit a 3-pointer to give Nicholls a 20-point edge at 46-26 less than three minutes into the second half.

“We noticed that the game was way too close, too close of a score. It shouldn’t even been that way from the jump and we let it happen. So we had to come out with some fire, some energy, everything we had. We had to put them away,” said West, who finished with 16 points and eight rebounds.”

“Coach got on us at halftime and jump-started us. It got the energy going to the place we need to be. We just played Nicholls basketball,” Oumar Koureissi said.

Koureissi came off the bench to finish with 14 points and a game-high 10 rebounds in 18:39 of action.

The Colonels built their lead as West became more aggressive with his inside game.

“I recognized it was a mismatch down there and I could get over the top of everybody. I was stronger than everybody. I could muscle everybody out.” West said.

The biggest lead of the game for Nicholls came in the closing moments on a dunk by Koureissi for a 32-point Colonel advantage at 86-54 with 1:38 left in the game on Nicholls’ way to the 30-point victory.

Gray had a game-high 18 points for Nicholls, while Thomas added 16 and Brown 11. West and guard Quinn Strander had eight rebounds each for the Colonels.

With neither team off to great offensive starts, Nicholls managed to go on an 8-0 run to turn a 5-5 tie into a 13-5 lead following a 3-pointer by White at the 15:03 mark of the first half.

After the Toppers cut the deficit to four points at 15-11, Koureissi entered the game and came up with several rebounds and managed to get to the free-throw line, scoring four points from the charity stripe for a 23-13 lead by the 9:03 mark of the first half following a Brown free throw.

“Coach spoke about it before the game. We had the size advantage, just imposing our will. So coming there early, I saw that we were struggling rebounding, so I came in with the mentality of trying to get every rebound that worked out for us,” Koureissi said.

For a team that has relied on 3-point shooting through their first few games of the season, the Colonels began to turn things around once Koureissi entered the game.

“A lot of times with scoring, you’re not gonna just come out and hit a bunch of three balls. Middies and stuff, and free throws get the rim kind of big and get you going. So I just came in and tried to attack the glass and got me some early free throws as the reward and kept building,” Koureissi said.

“I thought Oumar came in and provided some good minutes off the bench,” Saddler said. “When Omar’s locked in, he’s a really good player. I was proud of the way he played tonight. I don’t think no one had a good first half. I keep telling those guys, it’s the same thing we keep repeating and we’ve got to face it. I think it starts with me as a leader, but we have got to be better.

The closet Blue Mountain would get the remainder of the half was nine points on a layup by Jalen Boyd-Savage to make the score 35-26 with 3:02 in the first half as Nicholls went on to lead 37-26 at the break.

The win evened the Colonels record at 3-3. For Blue Mountain Christian, a NAIA school out of Mississippi, the game counted as an exhibition for the Toppers.

As Nicholls built its lead, 10 Colonels were able to see some game action for the first time at home. It was a home debut, said Saddler, that left a lot to be desired.

“I’m not proud of our performance. Credit Blue Mountain Christian. I tell the guys all the time, it’s less about them and more about us. I didn’t think we showed a good brand of Nicholls  basketball. One thing I always preach – you never know, it could have been someone’s first time watching Nicholls’ brand of basketball. I apologize for the first half. The second half was more who we are. We still got things to clean up, but we got to be better as a unit moving forward,” the Nicholls coach said.