With three regular-season games remaining McNeese State’s two basketball teams find themselves in the same desperate situation.

Both are looking to salvage otherwise disappointing seasons with enough wins down the stretch to earn spots in the Southland Conference postseason tournaments.

There is pressure on both teams for McNeese is hosting the tournaments. Avoiding the large blemishes of missing their own parties exist for both.

Add the pressure of the Athletic Director Heath Schroyer calling that option “unacceptable” just adds to the importance of the final three games.

“We are in a dire situation when it comes to the playoffs,” said women’s basketball coach Lynn Kennedy. “Every game is like a playoff game now.”

The good news for both is that each controls its own destiny for the most part. If either wins out they are in and moving up the seed line.

Two wins will for sure get the Cowgirls in, and likely the men’s team. Even one win, if it’s the right one, and the women are in the postseason.

The men, one win probably would mean a lot of other things would have to work out right for a bid. The top eight of the 10-team league make it.

Neither squad would want to let it be decided by tiebreakers, which are too varied and complicated to explain at the present time.

“There is still a lot of basketball to play,” said men’s coach John Aiken. “We know what is at stake. Our players know.”

The men’s race is a real cluster. Four teams are tied for both seventh place and last with 5-10 conference records.

“There are a lot of different ways it could go,” Aiken said.

It will begin to shake out starting Thursday night as the all the teams play three times in seven days. Not one of the league’s men’s teams have been eliminate.

“We just have to worry about ourselves,” said McNeese forward Christian Shumate.

Things are a little easier, slightly, on the women’s side. At 6-9 the Cowgirls are in a two-way tie for seventh with Houston Christian, who they play Thursday.

They are a game up on ninth-place New Orleans, which has beaten McNeese and holds the tiebreaker. Nicholls State (1-13) has been eliminated.

“We have to find ways to play better and win games,” Kennedy said.

That’s all that is left for both McNeese teams if they want to extend their seasons beyond March 1.