Will Wade wasn’t joking.

Just days after warning all his team wasn’t playing good enough, the Cowboys proved their head coach right Saturday afternoon in Hammond.

But McNeese State didn’t go down without a fight.

Twice in the final six seconds Javohn Garcia had shots from the corner to tie the game but missed, as Southeastern escaped with a 77-74 win over McNeese State inside the University Center.

The loss was the first for McNeese since Thanksgiving and ended the nation’s longest winning streak at 14 games. It was also the Cowboys’ first loss in Southland Conference play.

McNeese fell to 19-3 overall and 8-1 at the midway point of conference play. Their lead in the league was cut in half to one game over both Nicholls and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.

Preseason favorite Southeastern improved to 9-13, 4-5.

“Disappointing result,” said Wade. “We got down too much in the first half, I credit our guys for fighting back but we can’t keep putting ourselves in that position.

“Give them credit, they were the better team tonight. We didn’t get it done.”

Nick Caldwell led the Lions with 16 points while Roger McFarlane and Roscoe Eastmond each added 15.

The Lions used long-range shooting to gun down McNeese, hitting on 12 of 25 three-point attempts, including seven of their first nine when they took control in the opening half.

It is what Wade had been warning his club, saying they were not closing out on shooters and it would come back to haunt them. It did in Hammond.

“They were hot but we gave them wide-open shots,” said Wade. “They beat our rotations. We were too passive, too late. We didn’t get it done today.”

Yet the Cowboys, who were down 15 with just over 13 minutes left, put on their furious their usual furious rally that cut the lead to one, 75-74, when Christian Shumate rebounded a missed free throw from Shahada Wells and scored while being fouled. 

Shumate hit the following free throw with 13 seconds left. Somehow, despite being down nine (75-66) with just 29 remaining, the Cowboys had found their way back into the game by scoring eight points in 16 seconds.

Shumate, who finished with 15 points, scored five during that time. Wells also added 15 points while C.J. Felder had 16 to lead the Cowboys. 

After Alec Woodard was fouled he hit two free throws with 12 seconds to play, setting up the final shots for McNeese, which fell short.

Trouble started after McNeese jumped out to a 13-9 lead behind Shumate, who had seven of those points including a rare three-pointer. But that’s when the Cowboy offense went cold.

McNeese went the next 10:11 without making a basket, scoring on just six free throws while the Lions got hot. First SLU ran off 12 straight points to lead 21-13 before C.J. Felder hit a pair of free throws to break the spurt.

Shumate’s dunk with 3:56 remaining in the half made it 35-21 Southeastern. At the half, the Lions led 40-28 after making seven of their first nine three-point attempts. They shot 59.3 percent (16-27) from the floor overall.

For the game, the Cowboys managed to make just 7 of 24 from long range after entering the game near the 40% mark on those shots. SLU ended 15 of 16 from the free-throw line to McNeese’s 15 of 23.

McNeese will be back at home Monday night when they take on two-time defending Southland champ Texas A&M-Commerce in the Legacy Center. 

“It is a quick turnaround and we have to be ready,” said Wade. “We have to get back and try to get things fixed.

“We have to turn the page quick. It will be a tough, physical game We got a lot of stuff we need to get corrected.”