Nicholls women’s basketball fell to McNeese 86-70 in the second round of the Southland Conference tournament, eliminating the Colonels.
Holding the fourth seed, the Colonels received a first round bye before facing the fifth seeded Cowgirls in the quarterfinal matchup, a rematch of their regular season finale.  Nicholls was able to defeat McNeese in that meeting, but the Colonels were unable to stop a Cowgirl offense that shot over 50 percent from beyond the arc.
“First of all, credit goes to McNeese State and in the two previous games and after this one, it has certainly been an interesting series,” said head coach DoBee Plaisance. “It was nothing different, and nothing we didn’t expect. We were aware that they can shoot the three from deep. We were prepared for what they were looking to do and what we shut down in the previous games. The game plan was the same. They had a super aggressive game plan, and we countered at times, and there were stretches in the game where we gave ourselves opportunity for momentum, but we didn’t capitalize or sustain runs.”
The scores stayed close early on until a pair of McNeese threes had the Colonels down by eight, a margin that would prove to be significant in the second half.  McNeese brought a 42-31 into halftime in a game the Colonels never led.
“Much success goes to McNeese, but our players battled. We just didn’t sustain the runs,” Plaisance said. “In the second half, we just couldn’t get it past that eight-point mark. If we could’ve gotten past that we felt we could do something, but it never happened.”
Senior forward Alisha Allen scored 17 points, playing nearly the entirety of her last game in a Nicholls uniform. Allen felt her team lacked energy early on.
“I would have to say we came out a little slow,” Allen said. “We had some clustering on defense, and that was due to some poor communication, but we were still fighting throughout the game defensively.”
Nicholls struggled to overcome that eight-point threshold in the second half, as the Cowgirls had an answer for any offensive production Nicholls created. The Colonels were unable to execute the way they did in previous wins against McNeese earlier in the season, according to Plaisance.
“What we were having issues with was we didn’t come off those screens cleanly,” Plaisance said. “In previous games, we were much cleaner off those screens. In this game, we got caught up among ourselves at times. We would switch off screens and we would get caught up with each other. We just weren’t clean or crisp coming off those ball screens and handoffs.”
Despite the loss, this year’s team holds the best record in the program’s history at 19-11, improving on last season’s record win total. And though Plaisance will lose the All-Conference standout Allen after this season, the rest of her squad is expected to return next year, including junior guard K.K. Babin, who averaged over 13 points per game this season.
“I am proud of my ladies and the effort they had in this game and throughout the season,” Plaisance said. “We had to overcome a lot this season, and we kept coming back, and that is why it is so special at Nicholls and working with these ladies. There was no quit in their tank, and I am proud of them.”