Practice on Mardi Gras morning price Nicholls women willing to pay for success

While other college students might have been sleeping in late on Mardi Gras before heading off to parades, the women’s basketball team was on the basketball court.

“It’s like normal to us,” senior guard Kyla Hamilton said. “We expect it. We have the (Southland Conference) tournament coming up. We have some important games coming up. It’s the end of our season. We really need to practice. He (coach Justin Payne) still gives us time to be able to go to parades and enjoy Mardi Gras as well.”

“It’s something we signed up for,” said sophomore post player Lexi Alexander. “We knew this was coming but like Kayla said, we get our work in and then he gives us the privilege of being able to go to the parades. I’m thankful that he gives us the opportunity to experience Mardi Gras because a lot of us haven’t.”

The practices that come during holiday breaks for other students are just part of the unseen sacrifices made by student-athletes. For Payne, he tries to give his players the best of both worlds.

“It’s just when you’ve been doing it this long like we have, it’s just part of the process,” said Payne. “You don’t have as many holidays as everyone else has, but you’re doing what you love to do, and that’s the game of basketball.

“It could be tough on us some, you especially student-athletes when you could kind of look outside in human nature sets in and say, ‘hey, I want to do what kind of everybody else is doing.’ You have to really concentrate and focus on, OK, what’s the goal in mind? We have a task that we must do, and we got games to play coming up and we got to practice. So just kind of how it goes.”

Now is no time for a lack of concentration with Nicholls coming off a 70-44 loss last Saturday at Lamar.

Nicholls dropped to 5-6 in the Southland Conference and 11-12 overall in seeing its three-game winning streak come to an end.

In the loss to Lamar, Nicholls fell behind 14-0 before getting its first points of the game on a jumper by Mikayla Etienne 3:51 into the game.

Nicholls managed to cut the deficit to two points before eventually trailing 35-23 at halftime. Lamar built a lead of as many as 28 points in coasting to the win.

“I think this team’s learning,” said Payne. “We spent so much energy on that Thursday night game against Corpus. The lesson that we learned was that, hey, every day is new. You got to bounce back and play at a high level even on the quick turn around on Saturday

“I felt like we saw some good flashes in that we went down 14-0 and then we went on like a 20-8 run and really closed the game up. We kind of fell flat after that. That third quarter was terrible. We didn’t come out with the energy that I wanted us to. We just didn’t look like we had that same juice. It was on me. I didn’t have them prepared for the way Lamar was going to come out and play this game like a championship game. Credit to Lamar, but we’ll be ready for it. We’ll be ready for those in the future. I’m really proud of our group, and we’re going to continue to grow and be ready.”

It’s back to the road for the next game when Nicholls visits the University of New Orleans at 6:30 p.m. Thursday. Nicholls will host McNeese at 1 p.m. Saturday.

UNO is 6-6 in the Southland and 9-14 overall. In their most recent outing, the Privateers lost at Texas A&M-Commerce.

Nicholls lost at home to UNO 69-63 earlier this season.

In the first meeting between Nicholls and UNO, the Lady Colonels never trailed by more than six in the second half and the teams were trading points for much of the fourth quarter until two free throws by Brianna Ellis and a three-point play by Nahja Scott gave the Privateers their biggest lead of the game at nine points, 59-50, with 4:37 remaining in the game.

The Lady Colonels quickly responded on a 3-pointer by Deonna Brister and a basket by Brister while driving to the lane to pull Nicholls to within 59-55.

UNO’s Nora Francois, who finished with 12 points, committed a charge on the next possession, giving Nicholls a chance to cut further into the lead but the Lady Colonels failed to score. The Privateers made it a seven-point game on an Alexis Calderon 3-pointer.

Hamilton answered with a 3-pointer with 1:50 left in the game but UNO hit free throws down the stretch, connecting on 10 of 13 in the fourth quarter to hand Nicholls a 69-63 loss.

UNO’s DeArica Pryor is seventh in the Southland in scoring, averaging 14.1 points per game. She also is sixth in 3-point percentage, hitting 40 percent of her shots from long distance.

“She scored like 54 points total in two games. We have to be ready and do a great job on her,” Payne said of Pryor, who was recently named Player of the Week in the SLC. “We have to do a great job on the boards and again limit our turnovers.”

The Privateers feature two other double-figure scorers. Jayla Kimbrough, who is sixth in the SLC in field goal percentage at 44.2 percent, is averaging 10.9 points per contest. Nora Francois is averaging and even 10 points per outing.

Zoe Cooper leads UNO in rebounding, averaging 6.3 rebounds per game.

For Nicholls, Alexander paces the team in scoring, averaging 13.8 points per game to rank eighth in the conference.

Etienne is the only other Nicholls player averaging in double figures at 10.1 points per outing.

Hamilton, who is averaging 9.7 points, is third in the SLC in 3-point percentage, knocking down 41.2 percent of her shots. Britiya Curtis is sixth in the conference, connecting on 40.5 percent of her shots.

Daelyn Craig leads the team in rebounds, averaging 5.5 boards per contest.

There will be a lot of unknowns when Nicholls hosts McNeese on Saturday.

Because of a quirk in the schedule, McNeese is the only team in the Southland that Nicholls has not yet played.

McNeese is last in the SLC, having lost all 12 of its conference games and is 4-21 overall.

“Looking at the film and they’re not far off. They’re gonna win a game somewhere. We just don’t want it to be against us,” said Payne.

The Cowgirls are at or near the bottom of the conference in most statistical categories.

They are seventh in scoring, averaging 60 points per game, but last in scoring defense, yielding 76.3 per outing. McNeese also is last in the 10-team league in rebounding, pulling down 31.9 rebounds per outing.

The Cowgirls also are also eighth in 3-point shooting and ninth in field goal percentage.

Emilia Tenbrock, however, tops the charts individually.

She is first in the SLC in 3-point percentage, knocking down 44 percent from long range. Tenbrock also is second in the league in scoring, averaging 16.9 points per game.

Behind Tenbrock, the only other double-figure scorer for McNeese is Cristina Gil, who is averaging 11.5 points per game.

Mireia Yespes is ninth in the Southland in field goal percentage at 44.2 percent.

Clara Rosini leads McNeese in rebounding, averaging 5.8 boards per outing.

Only the top eight teams advance to the SLC’s postseason tournament, so the Lady Colonels are looking to take care of business in this week’s two outings to solidify a spot in the tourney.

“You don’t want no home run plays. We’re not trying to look two, three, four games ahead of ourselves. We just want to take it slowly but surely and just make sure that we’re getting better so that we can make a run late,” Payne said.