LAKE CHARLES, La. – Early turnover issues led to a quick deficit the Southeastern Louisiana University men's basketball team could not recover from as the Lions dropped their 2024 finale, 79-51, to the McNeese Cowboys Monday night on the Joe Dumars Court at the Legacy Center.
Southeastern (6-7, 0-2 SLC) ended the game shooting 39.6 percent from the field and 22.7 percent from three-point range. SLU turned the ball over 22 times which led to 32 points for McNeese.
For its part, the Cowboys (8-5, 2-0 SLC) shot 49.1 percent from the field, 38.9 percent from three, and turned the ball over 12 times, resulting in 12 Lion points off those miscues.
Kam Burton and
Sam Hines, Jr. both led the Lions in scoring as both put in 11 points. Hines hit five of his nine shot attempts and grabbed a team-high six rebounds while Burton added two three-pointers to his SLU season leading total, going four-of-10 from the field while getting three steals and three rebounds with an assist.
Jaiden Lawrence came off the bench to finish with nine points on four-of-eight shooting and grabbed two rebounds.
Jakevion Buckley grabbed five rebounds to go with six points and three assists.
Thomas Tut matched Buckley's three assists for the team-high.
The Lions were fighting from behind from almost the jump. Southeastern forced a missed three-pointer on McNeese's opening possession and grabbed the rebound, but SLU turned the ball over, leading to a transition dunk for the Cowboys to start what would become a 12-0 run for McNeese before Buckley got to the free throw line for the Lions' first point.
SLU got the deficit under 10 points a couple possessions later as Tut found Hines, Jr. underneath for a lay-up, making it 12-3 five minutes into the contest. Over the next 9:30, McNeese outscored Southeastern 16-3 to push the Cowboy lead out to 28-5, giving McNeese its largest lead of the period.
After the two teams traded three-pointers, with Buckley hitting Southeastern's, to make it 31-8 with 4:40 to go, the Lions seemed to find a bit of a rhythm. Burton found Hines, Jr. for a dunk, starting a 12-3 SLU run to end the half. Burton's steal and slam dunk over a Cowboy defender with just seconds remaining was the final two of eight-straight Lions points and cut the deficit to 34-20 at the break.
But McNeese would not allow the Lion run to continue into the second half as the Cowboys scored the first five points out of the locker room to push the lead back up to 19 points.
Brody Rowbury's put back of a missed shot got the Lions back within 17 at 42-25 with 17:40 left in the game, but the Cowboys scored 16 of the next 21 points to push the advantage out to 58-30 with 12 minutes left and the Lions would trail by at least 20 the rest of the way.
After playing 11 out of the first 13 games on the road, the Lions finally come home for back-to-back contests for the first time this season, starting on Saturday as Texas A&M-Corpus Christi comes to Hammond, America for the All Abilities Game as Southeastern shows its support for the disabled and special needs in the community.
Tip-off of Monday's game against the Islanders (8-6, 1-1 SLC) is set 3:30 p.m., or about 30 minutes following the women's game, and will be televised on ESPN+ with a radio broadcast available, thanks to the Southeastern Sports Radio Network, on 90.9 FM The Lion in the Hammond/Ponchatoula area and worldwide on LionSports.net/ListenLive or LionUpRadio.org, or you can listen to the game on smart devices through the Lions Gameday Experience app, the TuneIn Radio app, or the MyTuner Radio app. Live stats will also be available through LionSports.net.
HARDWOOD CLUB/S CLUB
Fans interested in becoming active supporters of the basketball program are encouraged to join the Hardwood Club. Lion alums are encouraged to join the exclusive S Club, which is restricted to Southeastern athletic letterwinners. All membership fees and donations to Hardwood Club are available for the exclusive use of the Southeastern basketball program. Membership information is available by contacting the Lion Athletics Association at
laa@southeastern.edu or (985) 549-5091 or visiting
www.LionUp.com.
SOCIAL MEDIA
For more information on Southeastern Basketball, follow @LionUpMBB and @DavidKieferSLU on Twitter, like /SLUathletics on Facebook and subscribe to the SLUathletics YouTube channel.
TICKETS
For ticket information, please contact the Southeastern Athletics Ticket Office at (985) 549-5466 or visit
www.LionSports.net/tickets. Southeastern is implementing mobile ticketing as the primary source for securing tickets. All tickets will be available via e-mail in a PDF format for fans to download on their phone or print at home. Tickets can also be downloaded to Apple Wallet.
