It didn’t take long for McNeese State’s season to divert from the path to the penthouse to the outhouse.

Two nights after taking defending league champion Stephen F. Austin to the brink, the Cowboys delivered a lackluster performance in a 68-56 home loss to Houston Baptist that puts the team in an unenviable position with two tough road games dead ahead.

“We didn’t come out to play tonight,” was senior guard Kevin Hardy’s blunt assessment.

No one could argue with that.

McNeese (6-7, 0-2 Southland) endured a pair of Saharan-caliber droughts, going scoreless in the final four minutes of each half. HBU (6-6, 1-1) closed the first half on an 11-0 run and finished the game with a 7-0 run.

“It didn’t look like we had the energy,” said coach Dave Simmons. “I thought we would have, playing at home. But we didn’t shoot it well. Even in shootaround, we didn’t have that spunk. And that’s what you have to have to compete in this league.”

The Cowboys missed their final 10 shots of the first half and didn’t score a field goal in the final 5:05 of the game. McNeese was 17 of 46 (37 percent) from the field and 6 of 18 (33 percent) from 3-point range.

“It’s very tough, especially to drop four in a row at home,” said senior forward Desharick Guidry. “I’m not saying they’re not a tough team, but we didn’t come out to play. They out-hustled us. They out-rebounded us. You could tell today we didn’t get after it like we usually do.”

The disappointment is massive for the Cowboys.

Not only did the Huskies pick up the first Southland road win in program history — they went winless away from home in their first go-round last season — but McNeese has to travel to potential contenders Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Sam Houston State before playing another game at Burton.

“We dropped one at home, so now we’ve got to go get one on the road to even things out,” Simmons said.

Guidry and Hardy were the only Cowboys to cross the 5-point barrier. Guidry finished with 22 points and nine rebounds and Hardy had 16 points and nine rebounds.

HBU out-rebounded McNeese by a 43-36 margin, with the majority of the difference coming on the offensive glass, where the Huskies sported a 17-11 advantage.

A telling sequence in the game occurred with just under nine minutes left as HBU missed the front end of a 1-and-1, but managed to get an offensive rebound and putback to extend its lead to nine points.

HBU dominated paint scoring by a 38-20 margin and also added 12 points off of turnovers.

Colter Lasher led the Huskies with a game-high 25 points on 10 of 16 shooting from the field.

McNeese’s Desharick Guidry has his shot blocked by Houston Baptist’s Josh Ibarra on Monday night during the Cowboys loss

Rick Hickman