The magic number is down to just one.

McNeese is just one victory away from clinching back-to-back Southland Conference regular season titles for the first time in 23 years.

That could happen as early as Monday night at home against Texas Rio-Grande Valley.

The Cowboys closed in on their second straight crown with a 73-57 victory over rival Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Saturday in front of 4,302 inside a rowdy Legacy Center. 

The win guarantees McNeese a share of the title, but that’s not good enough for this group.

“We don’t want to share it with anybody,” said Cowboy head coach Will Wade. “It would be fitting to clinch it at home.”

Saturday’s victory was the second season sweep in a row for McNeese over the Islanders after losing to them 16 straight times. 

“This was really big,” said McNeese forward Joe Charles. “Both teams talked a lot during the last game, and we had to back things up.”

There was a flare-up between the teams late in the first half to make things interesting. There was some pushing and a lot of talking, but it wasn’t anything more. 

“There was a lot of chirping going on,” said Charles. “We all defended our players.”

With the win, the Cowboys improved to 22-6 overall and 16-1 in the Southland. They kept their 3-game lead over Lamar, which staved off elimination with a 66-58 victory over Houston Christian earlier in the day.

Corpus Christi fell to 17-12, 10-7.

“Before we got here, they beat us a lot and won a bunch of championships,” said McNeese guard DJ Richards. “We knew that in order for us to be the champs, we had to beat them. They were the champs.”

Charles led McNeese with 16 points, all in the second half. Charles made 5 of 7 shots from the floor, including 4 of 5 from long range after intermission.

That helped the Cowboys break open a 32-30 halftime lead, which saw the Islanders rally from 10 down early in the game to close the opening 20 minutes strong.

Not so in the second half, as the Cowboys just kept pulling away.

“In the second half, we made the kill shots,” said Charles. “We had them on the ropes in the first half and let up.”

Quadir Copeland finished with 13 points, while Richards and Sincere Parker added 10 each. Eight of Parker’s points came in the first half. Christian Shumate had eight points and seven rebounds.

Garry Clark led all scorers with 17 points for the Islanders but was far less of a factor in the second half.

“Overall, one of our better second halves,” said Wade. “In the second half, we really had good rhythm. We were in a good head space.”

After falling behind 37-34 two minutes into the second half, the Cowboys went on a 15-2 run over the next 6:31. Copeland’s runner with 12:15 to play put McNeese up 49-39. 

The lead grew to 59-44 on back-to-back dunks by Shumate and Parker with 8:46 to play. 

The Islanders tried to crawl back into the game but never got closer than 12 points.

Byran Selebangue’s second dunk of the game with 2:46 left gave McNeese a 67-50 lead and ended all thoughts of a Corpus Christi upset.

Selebangue’s slams, while not up to the level of Shumate’s, are catching on around the McNeese arena. Fans are now calling them Sele-bang-bangs. No T-shirts have been seen yet, however.

As for Monday’s game on Senior Day, the Cowboys want to wrap it up at home.