That was quite a basketball party McNeese threw Wednesday afternoon.

The confetti fell. The steam  cannons went off. Students rushed the floor, shortly after a spirited chant of “Season’s Ooh-er! … Season’s Ooh-ver” directed at the fair contingent of fans from their most bitter rival, the Lamar Cardinals.

Nets were cut down in the Legacy Center not long after several McNeese players choreographed an impromptu dance atop the scorer’s table.

The final tally from that perch was McNeese 63, Lamar 54 in the Southland Conference Tournament finals.

That two-fer two-step for a second straight tournament title by the Cowboys — the first double-dip in school history — was just a warm-up, getting the moves down.

There will now be more dancing for the Cowboys, who’ll find out their spot in the NCAA’s Big Dance on Sunday.

“I wish them well in the NCAA tournament,” Lamar coach Alvin Brooks said afterwards.

Wait? What? Who?

Was that a gentle hint of sportsmanship creeping into this nasty I-10 Border rivalry.

If there’s No Crying in Baseball, there’s surely no hand-shaking and hugging in McNeese-Lamar.

McNeese’s win — though like Tuesday’s over Northwestern State, tougher than the final score suggests — was no surprise.

The Cowboys have dominated this league like few others over the last two years since head coach Will Wade landed in their lap.

“One more year!” was another postgame chant from the Legacy Party.

We’ll see about that. Wade pretty well dodged the question when asked in the more formal setting of the post game press conference.

The real surprise in this intense championship game was that there was no bloodshed between two teams.

It was pretty-well assumed, almost anticipated.

Coming in, you figured they wouldn’t need a shot clock — just play it “remaining television time” like the Junkyard Dog and them guys used to do.

Would they check their brass knuckles and jutsui knives before entering the game?

But even with a forgiving officiating crew that was, as they say, letting them play (in a good sort of way), and enough loose-ball scrums to ignite a melee even if they were good friends, they fairly well kept it to basketball.

And it was uber physical, for sure.

At times, the game almost seemed to be begging for a penalty box more than a free throw line.

Yet the rock-em-sock-em stuff pretty well stayed within accepted basketball rules.

“That’s Lamar basketball,” Wade said of what was often a nationally televise mosh pit. “They get you to get you to play in the mud with them.”

That’s another way of saying it wasn’t always the most aesthetic version of the game.

And that’s fine with McNeese.

“Hasn’’t always been pretty,” Wade said, summing up this season as well as this game. Hasn’t always been smooth.”

Yes — let’s just say it — it was often “ugly basketball.”

McNeese never trailed, but the Cowboys never really got confortable either. They didn’t get a double-digit lead until the game’s 1:42 mark.

But, for all the pushing and shoving, minus a lot a jawing and jabbing, the two teams made it into those final two minutes before a technical was called following a potential melee under the Lamar basket.

When the dust settled on that dust-up — it took a long video review that got the crowd  jumping, already smelling victory — it was a mere double-technical on McNeese’s D.J. Richard and Lamar’s Ja’Sean Jackson.

Translation: No harm done. Play on — and get the McNeese party started.

It was one of the young Legacy Center’s biggest celebrations.

At least Brooks didn’t complain about having to play in McNeese’s home floor — the SLC logo replacing the bucking horse at midcourt didn’t really disguise it.

That was Northwestern coach Rick Cabrera’s rant the previous night after a hard-fought loss in front of the Cowboys’ crowd.

“I don’t like that we played a road game,” Cabrera, who otherwise seems like decent sort.

“There’s a lot of beautiful places in this state and Texas that we could find where it’s not 6000 for one team and 300 for the other,” he complained.

“That’s not a neutral court. It’s just not.”

Maybe he’s like the game played in a vacuum.

Been there, tried that — at a truly neutral (and sterile) court in Katy, Texas. And — exaggeration alert – they drew  about 30 fans for each team, plus immediate family and a few girlfriends in an hermetically sealed environment.

Is that what they want?

He would be right if he claimed McNeese didn’t earn the right to host the tournament.

That was decided in advance — it was going to be in Lake Charles regardless of who the regular season champion was, and will be at least through 2029.

Maybe it should be preordained that the regular season champion hosts the tournament.

That, too, would have been McNeese, by leaps and bounds, these last tw years.

So the Cowboys certainly deserved to host the big gala Wednesday.

And what a day it was.