Having 40 percent of their starting lineup sent to early showers didn’t kill these Cowboys.

Facing an angry and fired-up group of Ragin’ Cajuns didn’t kill these Cowboys.

You are starting to get the feeling these Cowboys may not be so easy to kill.

“If you are going to run us over, you better kick it back in reverse and roll over us again,” said McNeese State head coach Will Wade. “Don’t leave us with a breath in our body or we will fight you until the end.”

McNeese faced down their most bitter rival Sunday, the Cajuns from Louisiana-Lafayette. And unlike the past these Cowboys didn’t back down.

Instead, they fought their way to a wild and physical 74-72 victory in the Legacy Center before a record sellout crowd.

It was their fifth straight victory overall, fourth against other Mid-Major programs. It was also their second win over a Sun Belt Conference champ during the week.

On Wednesday night McNeese beat Southern Miss, the Sun Belt’s regular-season champions from last season, which went to the NIT. The Cajuns won last season’s conference tourney title to earn an NCAA bid.

When asked after the game if the two victories made the Cowboys Sun Belt champs, guard Shahada Wells answered, “sure, you can say we are”.

All kidding aside, Sunday’s grind-it-out comeback win that saw McNeese go on a 16-2 run over a span of 4:31 proved this is not the Cowboys of old.

“We just came together and said this was about us,” said Wells, who led the Pokes with 18 points. 

In all, five McNeese players scored in double figures.

“We just stick together,” said forward Christian Shumate. “We have been through a lot already going back to when we came together in the summer. It got us ready for this.”

The Cowboys find themselves off to their best start at 10-2 in over a half century. It was 1972 when Lake Charles last saw this type of start.

“We feel it in the energy from the community,” said forward Antavion Collum. “We know how important this is to them.”

The area responded by coming out to see this team. Sunday was the first official sellout of the Legacy Center, proving basketball will sell in Lake Charles if it is a good product.

“I’m just happy for our community and our fans,” said Wade. “They deserve this.”

Sunday’s game had a bit of everything in it. The big comeback, three ejections, five technical fouls and even a scuffle that turned the rivalry red hot for the final 12 minutes.

The event that everybody will remember came when a loose ball in front of the Cajun bench ended in the two teams coming together. No punches were thrown but three McNeese players, including starters Collum and guard Omar Cooper, were tossed for coming off the Cowboy bench.

From that point the Pokes woke up.

“Maybe we were a little shell shocked before that,” said Collum. “When that happened we just got locked in and stuck to our game.”

The incident, which led to a seven-minute replay review by officials, got the crowd roaring. The fans ended by storming the floor and Cowboy players jumping on the media table to celebrate. . 

That might be a lot for a game against a 6-5 foe, but it did end eight straight losses to ULL and there hasn’t been a lot of things to celebrate recently when it comes to McNeese basketball.

So we can excuse the fans for maybe overreacting a little bit.

“It was a crazy game,” said Wade. “It was fun.”

One thing about this team, it seems like there will be a lot of celebrating ahead for it.

Shumate, who suffered through the last two years of 45 losses, has said there is some payback due for those defeats.

“There are a lot of teams we lost to last year that are back on our schedule so we’re looking forward to getting revenge a lot this season,” said Shumate.

While ULL is one of them Shumate said there are a lot more as well. 

“There are some teams that beat us twice last season,” he said. “I’m not going to say who they are, but we know who beat us.”

It is hard not to think the unimaginable for this program. After they come back from Christmas McNeese will end the nonconference part of their schedule at Michigan, a team currently in some turmoil. 

After that they will likely be favored in the rest of their 18 games, all in Southland Conference play. With two SLC tourney games at home, this team could win 30 games. 

“We want to sweep the conference,” said Collum. “We feel like we can’t lose one game.”

The Cowboys found a way not to let Sunday’s game against ULL slip away.