Green Wave's Late Surge Not Enough In 61-57 Loss to McNeese State

Official Allstate Sugar Bowl Packages Official Allstate BCS Championship Packages Official NCAA Final Four Packages Tulane Ticket Exchange

Green Wave's Late Surge Not Enough In 61-57 Loss to McNeese State

Tulane Outscored Cowboys 19-12 in Final Six Minutes in Loss

Dave Dickerson

Dec. 16, 2009

Box Score in PDF Format

NEW ORLEANS - Tulane's late second half surge was not enough to put them over the top in a 61-57 loss to McNeese State Wednesday night in Fogelman Arena.

The Green Wave (3-6) trailed 49-38, the largest deficit of the game, with 5:56 left after a lay-up by McNeese's (4-5) Will Morning gave the Cowboys the 11-point lead. Tulane then scored 13 of the next 15 points to tie the game, 51-51, with 3:12 left on a pair of Kevin Sims free throws. But, the Green Wave would never retake the lead.

McNeese State built a four-point lead, 57-53, with 0:59 left after Diego Kapelan's first points of the game came from the top of the key 3-pointer. Kapelan entered the game as MSU's second leading scorer with an 11.8 average.

Kapelan then hit a free throw with 0:20 left to put the Cowboys up five, 59-54, before Sims sunk a 3-pointer with 0:12 left to cut the deficit to two points. P.J. Alawoya then knocked down a pair of free throws with 0:07 left to ice the game and make the final 61-57.

"McNeese did a good job tonight of playing with energy and determination," Tulane head coach Dave Dickerson said. "That is something that my team did not do tonight and I'm very disappointed with that. As always, I'm the head coach so I will take the blame for that."

Tulane led for much of the first half and led 26-24 at the half. The Green Wave's largest lead of four came at the 11:01 mark of the first half.

"We had a stretch in the first half when we played well. We ended the half well. We had a stretch in the second half where we played, but we just could not put it out there for 40 minutes," Dickerson added.

Kris Richard led Tulane with a season-high 23 points, including scoring the first 11 points of the game for the Green Wave. The junior guard also dished out four assists and collected four steals.

Sims added 18 points and four assists in the loss. Both Sims and Richard knocked down four 3-pointers.

Alawoya led McNeese with 18 points and a game-high seven rebounds, while Stephan Martin had 15 points and Patrick Richard had 10 points.

Tulane shot 35.4 percent from the floor and connected on nine of 22 3-pointers (40.9 percent). MSU knocked down 48.9 percent from the field and hit 62.5 percent (5-8) from 3-point range. The Cowboys also won the battle on the boards, 33-26.

Tulane will complete its two-home stand when they host VCU on Saturday at 1 p.m. CST in Fogelman Arena.

GAME NOTES
- Senior guard Eric Vianney started for the 15th time of his career. The start was his first since Feb. 4, 2009 at UAB.
- Kevin Sims moved into fourth-place on Tulane's career assist list with his 4 assists tonight. Sims entered the game with 369 and moved past Greg Gary into fourth-place with his total of 371.
- Sims moved into sixth-place on Tulane's career minutes played list with his 36 minutes tonight. He moved past Wayne Tinsley with 3,308 minutes in his career.
- Sims recorded his sixth double figures scoring game of the season and the 69th game of his career with 18 points tonight.
- Kris Richard recorded his seventh double figure scoring game of the season and the 25th of his career with 23 points tonight. Richard's total was also his second 20-plus point game of the season and the fifth of his career.

Follow the Green Wave