McNeese rebounds for win<\/p>\n
Published 5:58 pm Monday, January 19, 2026<\/p>\n
While it wasn\u2019t a must-win, it sure was needed.<\/p>\n
Bouncing back from a bad showing two days earlier, the Cowboys salvaged the second half of their Texas Two Step Monday afternoon, dancing past Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, 69-53, inside the Hilliard Center.<\/p>\n
In a battle between the last four Southland Conference NCAA Tournament representatives, McNeese used its ability to drive the basketball to defeat the host Islanders. The 16-point margin was the largest Cowboy win ever in Corpus Christi, Texas, and just their fourth overall.<\/p>\n
\u201cA gutsy effort by our guys,\u201d said McNeese head coach Bill Armstrong. \u201cWe knew it would be a physical, physical game. A gutsy, gutsy effort.\u201d<\/p>\n
The plan for McNeese was to attack the basket and not settle for quick three-pointers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe talked about attacking the paint and finishing through contact,\u201d said Armstrong. \u201cAnd we wanted to finish at the free throw line.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Cowboys did that, hitting 18 of their 26 free throws, going 9-for-11 in the second half. McNeese also won the battle of the boards, 39-19, including 14-5 on the offensive glass.<\/p>\n
That led to 19 second-chance Cowboy points to just four for the Islanders.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir second-chance points were a big part of the game,\u201d said Corpus Christi head coach Jim Shaw. \u201cThey came in here with a chip on their shoulders, and we knew they would.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Cowobys were upset 79-76 last Saturday at Texas Rio-Grande Valley, which did not sit well with them as it knocked them out of a first-place tie in the Southland Conference.<\/p>\n
McNeese improved to 15-4, 8-2 in the Southland, a half game behind Stephen F. Austin, which played late Monday night against Nicholls. The Colonels entered the home contest tied for second with McNeese.<\/p>\n
Corpus Christi fell to 10-9, 6-4.<\/p>\n
Larry Johnson led the Cowboys with 17 points and nine rebounds, both game highs. He was 7-for-10 on free throws.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Carl Cherenfant and Tyshawn Archie each finished with 13 points. It was Cherenfant\u2019s most points against a Division I opponent this season, and he added seven rebounds, four on the offensive end, to his resume.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought Carl played his best game of the year,\u201d said Armstrong. \u201cEverybody on the stat sheet performed well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jerrell Colbert added eight points on 4-of-4 shooting from the floor before fouling out. Sheldon Williams was the only Islander in double figures with 13.<\/p>\n
After the teams started the game going back and forth with the lead, Kam Parker\u2019s 3-pointer gave the Islanders a 19-15 lead with 8:12 left in the first half. It would be their biggest lead of the game.<\/p>\n
McNeese finished the half outscoring Corpus Christi 25-13 from there. Archie\u2019s 3-pointer, the only one the Cowboys hit in the half, gave them a 40-32 lead at the break.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Corpus never got closer than seven points in the second half as the Cowboys kept grinding away. They stretched their lead out to 64-49 with 5:18 to play on a pair of Cherenfant free throws.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Moments later, Garwey Dual put the game on ice with two dunks as McNeese\u2019s defense didn\u2019t allow the Islanders to hit a 3-pointer (0-for-6) in the second half.<\/p>\n
Over their last 14 possessions, the Islanders scored just two times as McNeese turned up its defense to finish things off.\u00a0<\/p>\n
McNeese will be home for the only time in the current six-game stretch next Saturday when the Cowboys host New Orleans in Townsley Law Arena at 4 p.m.<\/p>\n
McNeese will then go back on the road for the following three games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McNeese rebounds for win Published 5:58 pm Monday, January 19, 2026 While it wasn\u2019t a must-win, it sure…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":{"0":"post-129847","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-corpus-christi","8":"tag-corpus-christi","9":"tag-corpus-christi-headlines","10":"tag-corpus-christi-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}