Despite having an all-star forward ranked third in the Southland Conference in scoring and a roster filled with many talented players, the Lady Colonels women’s basketball team failed to receive a bid to the SLC Tournament for the second straight year. The Lady Colonels experienced wins few and far between this season and finished their season ranked fifth in the SLC Eastern Division with an overall record of 7-20 and 5-11 in SLC play.
Head coach Mark Cook completed his third year of coaching and has compiled a 19-63 overall record at Nicholls.
“I thought our performances were better than last year. I thought the competitiveness overall was very good and we kept ourselves in a lot of ball games,” Cook said. “It didn’t always come out our way, but many games came down to the last two or three minutes.”
The Lady Colonels started pre-conference play embarking on a brutal away schedule featuring larger opponents such as Arizona State, Miami, Nebraska, St. Johns, and Ole Miss.
After losing their first five games by an average of 36.4 points per game, Nicholls won its first game of the season on the road against Wright State University, 65-56. Despite having momentum for the first win of the season, the Lady Colonels were then handed their first home loss courtesy of University of New Orleans.
The team finished pre-conference play with two wins and nine losses.
The Lady Colonels showed a sign of hope in their second conference game of the season as they knocked off Sam Houston State on the road in a thrilling overtime endeavor, in which they won 82-78.
Following the win over the Bearkats, the Lady Colonels suffered five consecutive losses.
The Lady Colonels saw a split second of momentum as they won their only back to back games of the season in the first week of February. Both wins came at home against Lamar University and McNeese State University.
After the pair of wins, the team slipped into a three game losing streak.
The triple losses were tough for the team, but the Lady Colonels pulled out another overtime win against Northwestern State, which had fans wondering if a SLC tournament bid might be in the making.
The Lady Colonels needed to win the remaining three away games on the slate and the SLC tournament bid would be theirs; however, the team managed to win one of those three games and ruled out their chances at the tournament.
Nevertheless, Nicholls finished the season ranked 23 out of 324 Division I teams and ranked second in the SLC in turnover ratio with +14.2.
“We did a great job at controlling our turnovers in conference play. When we began conference play, one of our main goals was to have fewer turnovers and we did a really good job this year as opposed to last year,” Cook said. “We really kept ourselves in ball games because we weren’t turning the ball over and we were getting opportunities to shoot the ball.”
One of the focal points in the upcoming season will most likely be improving rebounding margin, which the Lady Colonels ranked 324 out of 324 teams in Division I women’s basketball and last in the SLC.
“One of the post players we will be bringing in will be able to help our rebounding margin. Our rebounding suffered this year because we were missing a lot of shots. It was not that teams were killing us on the offensive end, we just ended up giving a lot of defensive rebounds due to not making shots,” Cook said.
Jamie Octave was the only player on the team to receive SLC post-season honors. The senior guard from St. James was named to the All-SLC Second Team for her performances during the 2006-2007 season. Octave ranked 3rd in the SLC and 76th in the nation in scoring; she averaged 16.8 points per game. However, Octave has completed her eligibility and will not return next season.
The Lady Colonels will also lose senior guard Claire Barry from Sulphur who was third on the team in scoring, averaging 12.1 points per game.
