After a weeklong break for finals, the McNeese State Cowgirls will get back to the court today with a 7 p.m. game against Centenary.

“It’s been really nice to have a week in between contests to have some breakdown time,” said head coach Brooks-Donald Williams. “We had a lot to work on between Wiley and Centenary. The No. 1 focus was preparing for finals, but No. 2 was having a little bit of time each day to focus on basketball.

“There’s so much we need to work on. The break has been really good — we’ve been able to do some individual workouts and work on some little things.”

The layoff and the winless Ladies may serve as an ideal combination to fix what has ailed the Cowgirls — field goal shooting.

McNeese (4-2) has done enough things well to beat everyone on its schedule except Tulane and Texas A&M, but has been plagued by an inability to make shots. The Cowgirls are shooting 33.3 percent from the field, which ranks 324th in the nation.

“Now that we’re out of the first semester, we’ll have a lot of time to spend on shooting,” Donald Williams said. “We’re not really creating for each other. It shows in our shooting percentage and assists. We’re not doing a great job setting up for shots on the perimeter or down low. We’re not doing a good job of attracting a defender to set someone up for a good shot.”

Fortunately for McNeese, Centenary (0-8) has not been a stone wall on defense. The Ladies have allowed 85.3 points per game against Division III competition.

Donald Williams said she believes a better performance by the defense will benefit the offense.

“We have to be able to have some solid defensive stops and get some production to take pressure off of our offense,” she said. “We’re always working towards that first from Day 1. We always go back to the drawing board on that to fix our offense. We have always have had solid defensive teams. We’ve got the ability to do that and this team will in time. That’s what we’ve got to continue to work towards.”(Rick Hickman/American Press)