Cowboy chemistry working on court
Published 8:25 pm Tuesday, December 26, 2023
- Will Wade and the Cowboys won't play in the SLC Tournament until Tuesday.
Back before the season began, Will Wade said it would take time for this group of Cowboys to come together.
“I think we will be a work in progress,” was Wade. “We will be a much better basketball team at the end of February than we are right now.”
The first-year McNeese State head coach may have been sandbagging, or he may just have been telling the truth.
It doesn’t matter now, for the fact is McNeese is off to a surprisingly strong 10-2 start as they get ready for their biggest test of the season, a trip to Michigan on Friday.
The Cowboys will take on the 6-6 Wolverines from the Big Ten as their last pre-conference game. It will also close out the 2023 portion of their schedule.
At first glance at the Cowboy schedule an 8-5 start would have been impressive, now it seems silly to even think that. McNeese has won five in a row and is 7-0 at home.
The Pokes are also 6-2 against other Mid-Majors, with wins on the road over Alabama-Birmingham and Virginia Commonwealth.
Their last two victories have come over the best from last year’s Sun Belt Conference, as they beat defending regular-season champ Southern Miss and then tournament winner Louisiana-Lafayette.
While unexpected to most, the Cowboys themselves are not surprised.
“I think we should be 12-0,” said center Antavion Collum.
When asked why these Cowboys are so good so fast Collum answered, “We like playing together.”
To a man, each player talks first about chemistry, which is a big surprise when you consider very few of them ever met before last summer let alone play together.
“We all are here for a reason,” said guard Shahada Wells. “Coach Wade brought us together with the vision of doing something special this season. We are all here to win.”
Not all of the bonding came on the court, in fact early in the process little did. It was more about getting to know each other as people and sharing their journeys to McNeese as much as anything.
“We spent a lot of time doing things off the court together,” said forward Christian Shumate. “Coaches put us in a lot of tough spots and we went through them together.”
Learning through adversity has been a key. So when they fell down to ULL by 13 with 11 minutes left and two starters were ejected there was no panic.
“We just came together at that point,” said Wells. “We believe in each other. We knew we could get it done.”
They also believe in each other, especially when it comes to scoring. When DJ Richards came off the bench to score a career-high 24 points against Southern Miss he quickly gave credit to the other Cowboys.
“They got me the ball in good spots,” said Richards. “It was just my night. We have a lot of guys who can score, it’s just whose night it is.”
And it is not just one offense that McNeese is connected either. The Pokes entered this week ranked third in the nation in team defense, allowing just 57.8 points a game.
That puts them in the company of some big programs like Houston, which is first, Virginia (2nd), and Iowa State (4th). Michigan, which averages 83.8 a game, good for 31st in the nation, will test that.
The Cowboys say they will be ready.
“It will be a big challenge for us and we are looking forward to it,” said Collum.
So are McNeese fans who want to see just how far chemistry can take this club.
