Mayhem has found a new home.

At least for one day.

Zach Scott’s jumper with 0.9 seconds remaining was the perfect ending to a day-long celebration Saturday inside the newly named and reopened Legacy Center.

Scott’s heroics made a 78-75 winner of McNeese State over Houston Baptist in its Southland Conference opener.

“The crowd was amazing. I think they wanted to storm the court,” Cowboys guard Collin Warren said of the 2,405 fans.

It was the first time the Cowboys played in their on-campus arena since Feb. 26, 2020. The arena suffered devastating damage during Hurricanes Laura and Delta.

“The emotion for everybody and what we have all been through, I don’t know if you could have written a better story,” said McNeese head coach John Aiken.

After Darius Lee’s runner tied the score at 75 for HBU with 9.3 seconds left, the Cowboys (7-11) went down the floor without a timeout and Kellon Taylor got the ball to Scott at the top of the key.

“I did not call a time out because I trusted Kellon and the guys that much,” Aiken said.

“Once the ball was in Kellon’s hands I knew he would find the right play.”

Covered, Scott pumped once, took a quick dribble step to his left and fired over HBU’s Jade Tse. The ball went through clean, setting off a wild, but premature celebration as the clock reached zero and the horn sounded.

“No doubt in my mind it was going in,” Aiken said.

For Scott, his fifth and final 3-pointer of the day was a matter of an ending he knew was coming.

“Somebody was going to make the shot,” Scott said. “I didn’t know who would get it done, but I knew we would get that bucket.”

Officials, after a long look on video, put 0.9 seconds back on the clock. Taylor made Scott’s shot hold up by stealing the desperation inbound pass.

All the Cowboys raced over to celebrate the victory with the student section.

“We just wanted to win this for ourselves and our fans,” Taylor said.

Scott finished with a game-high 24 points, hitting 5 of 7 3-pointers. Warren finished with 21 points while Myles Lewis added 13 and Taylor had 12.

The game was full of high energy and more than a few testy moments between the teams, which is just the way these Cowboys say they like it.

“We are going to be scrappy,” Taylor said. “We are going to play that way. We feed off that.”

The Cowboys started to take control after Scott and Warren hit back-to-back 3s with 6:10 remaining. Warren then followed with a steal and dunk, and when Lewis hit a runner McNeese had its biggest lead of the night at 68-60 with 5:20 left.

But Houston Baptist’s Brycen Long hit a trey to start a Huskies comeback that ended with the score tied before Scott’s heroics.

Lee led HBU (4-10), which lost its fourth consecutive game, with 18 points while Long finished with 15. The Huskies have yet to beat a Division I team.

After a fast start McNeese held a 39-37 lead at halftime. The Cowboys began the game with a 9-0 run with Scott scoring seven.