Jim Gazzolo column: Pierre stands tall in SLC
Published 11:25 am Thursday, February 26, 2026
Jalencia Pierre is way too short.
She doesn’t score enough points.
She isn’t a good shooter.
It’s easy to overlook her.
Pierre is listed at 5-foot-5 and roughly 98 pounds. Both numbers may be a touch exaggerated.
But you can understand how she is overlooked on the basketball court.
The McNeese State point guard just isn’t a good enough basketball player to be considered as the Southland Conference’s Player of the Year, they say. She just doesn’t look the part.
Hogwash.
That is just small-minded thinking, if you pardon my pun.
Pierre is the best defensive player on the league’s best defensive team, one that captured the league’s regular-season title while roughly 25 percent of the schedule remained.
That’s dominance.
I get she’s not the fancy name. Heck, the Cowgirls aren’t a fancy team. They are a gritty, down-and-dirty, defense-first squad that tortures foes every inch of the 94-foot floor.
Pierre is the tip of the McNeese sword that bleeds opponents dry, cut by cut.
That’s why the two-time, and likely soon-to-be three-time, Southland Defensive Player of the Year deserves to be considered for the league’s top honor.
Maybe the POY honor isn’t about being most valuable. If that’s the case, just name the award best player and move forward. But if it is supposed to go to the most valuable, or maybe most important, then Pierre gets my vote.
If you watch the Cowgirls for any period of time, you will know that it is Pierre who, despite her shortcomings (pun), is the player who deserves it daily. The senior has a way of playing big in big moments.
To me, that’s what MVPs do. Last Thursday, when the Cowgirls were struggling to stay with second-place Texas-Rio Grande Valley, it was Pierre who scored 12 first-half points to keep them up by one at halftime.
In the showdown game, she made all eight of her free throws as the Cowgirls held on to win 60-53.
“That kid is tough,” her coach, Ayla Guzzardo, said of Pierre. “She scored 1,000 points; she just does it from her defense.”
Reaching the century mark in points shows Pierre can score, something that often gets overlooked.
“I like to play defense,” Pierre said. “I get my offense from my defense.”
What Pierre does most of all is win. She is 50-10 the last two seasons, which is how we should judge a player’s value.
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Jim Gazzolo is a freelance writer who covers McNeese State athletics for the American Press. Email him at jimgazzolo@yahoo.com
