You would think a team off to a program-best 19-2 record, undefeated in eight league games, and on a nation-best 14-game win streak would be riding high.

If so you don’t know Will Wade, you would be wrong.

The first-year McNeese State head coach who has turned the program around in less than a year has higher standards and greater expectations for this year’s Cowboys. And his players know it.

Despite winning two home games by a combined 61 points over three days, Wade wasn’t happy Monday night. He wasn’t happy at all.

After the Pokes knocked off Northwestern State 89-65 to stay perfect inside the Legacy Center at 11-0, Wade used his postgame press conference to send a message to his team. You also got the feeling he sent that same message to them after the game in person as well.

“This is just simply not good enough,” said Wade. “We don’t have very good attention to detail. Certainly happy to be 8-0, happy that we won, but we are going to have to be much improved. This isn’t good enough.”

On paper, the Cowboys’ latest victory looks impressive. They won by 25 points, gave up just 65 and scored over 80 again. They also forced 26 turnovers and scored 36 points off those Demon miscues.

But Wade looks at the big picture on the season and the fine print on stat sheets. He noticed the Demons got seven offensive rebounds on just 15 missed shots and made 10 of their 19 three-point attempts while shooting 55.9 percent from the floor overall.

“That’s not a very good recipe to win most nights,” said Wade. “We gave up angles, we left open outside shooters. It’s the same problems that plague us and we refuse to fix them.

“We don’t have very good attention to detail right now. We have to get that fixed quick.

This is fool’s gold. We take that effort on the road at Southeastern Saturday and it’s a loss. You can kiss the winning streak goodbye.”

Wade’s players have heard the message loud and clear.

“We know what we are supposed to do,” said guard DJ Richards, who had 14 Monday. “It is easy to get comfortable. We will figure it out.”

As for Wade’s tough talk, that is expected by this group.

“He loves us,” said Richards. “We know he loves us and wants the best for us. We just have to show him we can fix it.”

Forward Christan Shumate, who suffered through 45 losses the last two seasons, understands the expectations have changed.

“Sometimes we don’t meet physicality with physicality,” said Shumate, who had 15 points and eight rebounds against the Demons. “The standards we get held to will produce wins in coming games.”

Wade wants to make it clear: “We got to practice better. We refuse to do We don’t fix anything. We better fix it or 8-0 ain’t going to be 8-0 very long.

We got real basketball issues we better get fixed,” said Wade. “This is just simply not good enough if we want to be the team we are capable of being. We have been sloppy, We have been sloppy, sloppy, sloppy.”

And Wade said time is running out.

“It’s 48 days until selection Sunday and we are out here just prancing around like everything is cool,” he said. “We got 48 days to get this right, get our stuff tight. We don’t get anything for all this stuff but some nice tweets and a nice story.

“I got to change the message because obviously what I have been hammering hasn’t hit the nail. We are obviously hitting our fingers.”

And he would like to fix it before the Cowboys stub their toes.