Big second half sends Cowboys to 71-59 win over St. Francis Brooklyn

NICEVILLE, Florida - Brendan Medley-Bacon recorded his second 20-point game of the season when he led McNeese with 21 points in a 71-59 win over St. Francis Brooklyn at the Emerald Coast Classic.

The win will send the Cowboys into Saturday’s winner’s bracket game against the winner of Samford/North Carolina A&T at 12:30.

“This is a big win,” said head coach John Aiken. “We haven’t won a lot of non-conference Division I games and to beat a team that just lost by six points to St. John’s, especially outscoring them by 20 in the second half, that’ll give us a lot of confidence going forward.”

McNeese (3-3) picked up the impressive mid-major win in its first game of the season against a like-opponent and used a stellar second-half performance to do so.

Trailing 19-7 early and 31-24 at the half, McNeese came out blistering in the second half, knocking down nine of its first 10 shots and took its first lead of the game on a made layup by Kellon Taylor, who scored 15 points and was one of four Cowboys in double-figures. The Cowboys outscored the Terriers 64-40 from that 12-point deficit and 47-28 in the second half.

“At the half I just challenged our guys,” said Aiken. “I think we were worrying too much about offense and weren’t executing what we’re built on and that’s defense. I told the guys to think defense first and we’re going to get stops. Once we do that, the offense will come, and that’s what happened in the second half.

“I think we put on a defensive clinic for us in the second half. We held them to 28 points in the half and 10 of those came on free throws. We went smash-mouth basketball in the second half. We threw it into KT and Brendan and let them do their thing.

“TJ Moss made some huge shots in the second half and Harwin had a big three.

“We managed the game as good as we have all season.”

St. Francis (0-4), who nearly pulled off an upset over Big East Conference member St. John’s earlier in the week, retook the lead the next possession off a layup and free throw by Michael Cubbage to make it 36-34 at the 16:01 mark of the second half.

A couple of free throws then a layup by Medley-Bacon followed to put McNeese up 38-36 with 15:16 to play and the Cowboys would not lose the lead again.

TJ Moss, who finished with 10 points, knocked down back-to-back three-pointers to help keep the Cowboys ahead after the Terriers cut the margin to one point both times, then after STC scored four straight to pull it to within 52-49 at the 9:26 mark, Harwin Francois drained a crucial 3 to put McNeese back up by six with 8:27 remaining.

On the next possession, Johnathan Massie fed Medley-Bacon on an alley-oop to make it a 57-49 lead, the largest of the game for the Cowboys, with just under eight minutes to play.

McNeese’s defense never allowed the Terriers to threaten the rest of the way by allowing just one offensive rebound in the final eight minutes while the offense matched score for score and used a 6-0 run late to put the game away as Taylor’s layup with 1:11 to play gave the Cowboys a 71-57 lead.

Lewis recorded his first double-double of the season with 14 points and a season-high 10 rebounds as the Cowboys held a 36-29 advantage on the glass and outscored the Terriers 48-32 in the paint.

Cubbage led the Terriers with 19 points while Tedrick Wilcox Jr. and Larry Moreno each scored 10.