During the last days of the Cowboys’ nine-game losing streak, head coach John Aiken challenged his best player.

Aiken took Christian Shumate to task for poor free-throw shooting and play down the stretch of games McNeese State was losing at the wire.

The move could have gone one of two ways. With the season slipping away Shumate could either tune out his coach or embrace the challenge.

The sophomore from Chicago chose the latter.

“Christian has really stepped up for us,” Aiken said. “He has become the guy we can go to.”

Since that moment, some 12 days ago, Shumate has been arguably the best player in the Southland Conference and the Cowboys have won three consecutive games, all at the wire.

“When things got dark they stay dark in your head,” Shumate said. “We had to stay confident and turn it around.”

Behind Shumate’s play McNeese (8-19, 5-9 SLC) has gone from last and out of the SLC postseason tournament into a four-way tie for sixth place in the 10-team league with four regular-season games to play.

The Cowboys enter today’s game against league co-leader Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (18-9, 11-3) on a high after beating Incarnate Word 78-76 in overtime Thursday night.

Tip-off at the Legacy Center is set for 3:30 p.m.

“We have just tried to stay confident through the tough times, stay together,” Shumate said. “We are confident now at the end of games.”

Shumate made the biggest plays Thursday. His two-handed dunk with 5.4 seconds remaining in overtime proved to be the winner.

On the play, Shumate grabbed the defensive rebound, got the ball to Darren Oday who hit Johnathan Massie down the floor. Massie gave a perfect feed to Shumate, who outraced all the Cardinals to the rim.

“I wanted to beat my guy and the clock,” Shumate said.

His basket were the final two points of his career-best 32. Shumate also had 11 rebounds while playing all but 48 seconds of the 45-minute game.

“Christian was just outstanding,” Aiken said. “He is playing at a very high level and accepted the challenge we gave him.”

Shumate even made 10 of 12 free throws and was 11 of 17 from the field.

During the three-game win streak Shumate is averaging 22.3 points a game and 9.7 rebounds. He has made 22 of his 34 shots from the floor (65 percent) and 23 of 28 (82 percent) from the line.

Shumate knows, despite the hot streak and rise in the standings, the Cowboys remain on the bubble when it comes to the postseason and a game out of last place.

“We know the situation,” Shumate said. “We are in a dire need for winning games.”