Winning solves a lot of things. 

Now, we will find out if one win can fix what is ailing the Cowboys.

Still struggling to find its identity, McNeese State used a big final push to race past non-Division I LeTourneau Saturday afternoon inside the Legacy Center.

McNeese found its shooting touch in time for a 103-69 win, ending their two-game losing streak and improving to 5-4. The Yellowjackets fell to 7-3.

“We chose to go out there and have fun,” said Quadir Copeland. “We started out slow and have to talk about that.”

Copeland, Christian Shumate, and Bryant Selebangue all finished with season-highs in points. Copeland ended just one rebound shy of a triple-double with 20 points, 11 assists, and nine rebounds.

The junior transfer from Syracuse had that missing rebound in his hands in the closing seconds, only to have teammate Omar Cooper snatch it from him.

“I knew I was close,” said Copeland. “Omar stole my last one, but that is cool.”

Shumate ended with 22 points, including hitting his first four 3-point shots. He made 8 of 9 from the floor overall, missing just one from long range.

“I have been working on my shot,” said Shumate. “I finally feel I’m in the right place. Hitting a few of them opened my drive.”

Selebangue, playing almost 23 minutes, hit seven of his eight shots and finished with 14 points and four rebounds. 

“Bryant was a bright spot,” said McNeese head coach Will Wade. “He’s not perfect, but he does stuff that other people don’t want to do.”

The Cowboys shot a season-high 69.5 percent from the floor and made all 11 of their free throws. During the second half, McNeese was 24 of 29 (82.8%) from the field and hit 7 of 11 from long range. 

Sincere Parker added 16 points, DJ Richards made four straight threes at one point for his 12, and Javohn Garcia added 10. 

McNeese was not so good in the first half, as LeTourneau led for over half of the opening 20 minutes. Deonte Jackson led the way with 17 points in the first 11 minutes.

The 5-foot-9 sharpshooter finished with 21 points to lead the Yellowjackets.

LeTourneau led by nine, 20-11, when Jackson hit two 3-pointers and a layup during a two-minute stretch with 12:46 left in the half. That’s when the Cowboys started to come back behind Shumate and Copeland. 

Shumate’s nine points in the last 2:02 gave McNeese a 43-38 lead at the half.

From there, the Cowboys built their lead until they pulled away in the final 10 minutes. 

That wasn’t enough to please their head coach.

“I didn’t see anything today to be warm and fuzzy about,” said Wade. “It was a good win, but we had better get a lot better this week. We better make massive progress. 

McNeese will play Mississippi State next Saturday in Tupelo, MS. 

“We got issues,” Wade said. “You don’t need to be a basketball coach to see that.”

The Cowboys did manage to finish with a season-best 23 assists. 

McNeese was playing without forward Joe Charles, who missed the game with a knee injury. Wade said he did not consider the injury serious and expected Charles back for Mississippi State.