It’s mid-January and the Cowboys are still in search of their identity.

Forced to remake their lineup on the fly, McNeese State has yet to put together a full attack.

First it was fixing an offense that turned the ball over too much. That led to a four-guard attack that infused energy into the team and lifted the Cowboys to a couple of conference victories.

However, that has exposed a defense which has been allowing an alarming amount of points of late.

Over the last three Southland Conference games — all losses — the Cowboys (5-13, 2-3 SLC) have allowed 82, 89 and 90 points, respectively. That’s an average of 87 points a game.

“We are not stopping anybody,” McNeese head coach John Aiken said.

The Cowboys’ last three opponents shot a combine 83-for-162 from the field, good for 51.2 percent. They were 44 percent (33-for-75) from behind the 3-point line.

“We are not getting out on the shooters quick enough,” Aiken said. “We have to challenge the shots betters. We can’t let them get comfortable.”

Scoring has not been the problem for McNeese. In their five Southland games the Cowboys are averaging 81 points, good for third in the league. However, they are allowing 80 during that span which is only ahead of Incarnate Word.

“We got more than enough offense,” Aiken said. “Our offense is fine. We need to come up with some way to play better defense and not give up our offense.”

And that is the struggle.

McNeese has flipped the script from the nonconference days when it was turning the ball over almost 20 times a game. The Cowboys are second in turnovers at 12.8 in SLC games and second in assist-to-turnover ratio at 1.14.

“We have become feast or famine defense,” Aiken said. “We have to get much more solid on that side of the ball.”

Heading into this week’s pair of home-and-home games against Nicholls State, Aiken said he expects to make some changes in the positioning of some players inside the Cowboys’ zone.

“We will be rearranging where some guys are,” Aiken said. “We have to find the right combination going forward and get guys in the right spots. We want to use our length on shooters.”

This week could prove pivotal for the Cowboys, who play three of their next four games on the road. Their lone home game is Saturday’s game against third-place Nicholls (8-9, 3-2).

The Cowboys also need to keep people from the free-throw line. In SLC games, they have been outscored by 46 points from the line and have allowed 123 free throws while getting 69 themselves.

“We are fouling way too much,” Aiken said. “We can’t do that and give up 3-pointers. You can’t do both.”

Not if you want to playing meaningful games in February.