With Austin Lewis unavailable for a block party, Kevin Hardy decided to entertain the Burton Coliseum crowd with a personal dunk contest Wednesday night.

The 6-foot-2 senior guard out of St. Louis Catholic slammed home an unofficial school-record eight dunks in an 18-point effort to lead the Cowboys to a 74-63 win over Southern-New Orleans.

“A lot of high-percentage shots,” Hardy joked.

The jams came in just about every available form, from alley-oop to reverse to putback to simply taking off from the ground and throwing down with authority.

“The first half, I had a few and it felt like it was coming pretty easy — I was taking what they were giving me and attacking the rim,” Hardy said. “The second half, the ball just seemed to bounce my way every time. It’s a blessing I got as many opportunities as I did.”

Hardy wasn’t exclusively pulling out playground moves. Cowboys head coach Dave Simmons switched him to guard SUNO forward Will Bailey at halftime. Bailey, who played at Morehead State as a freshman, scored 17 points in the first half but was shut out by Hardy in the second half.

“This was the best game he played all year, and not only because of spectacular dunks,” Simmons said. “Will Bailey put on a show the first half. He shut Will Bailey down. You can tell what kind of athleticism he has.”

The Knights (1-7) proved more difficult to put away than the Cowboys (3-2) would have liked, draining 11 of 18 3-point attempts even as McNeese primarily played man to man.

“I guess we have shooter’s rims for opponents,” Hardy said. “There’s been many games where the opponents just seem to throw them up from outside and they fall every time. I guess they like the way our rims are.”

McNeese displayed an opposite amount of competence behind the arc, making 3 of 21 from downtown.

“Obviously, teams are going to zone us,” Simmons said. “We’ll face more zone until we prove we can hit the shot from outside.”

For one night, outside shooting didn’t matter as the Cowboys dominated the Knights in the paint by a 58-10 margin and hit 51.5 percent from the field. Senior forward Desharick Guidry was emblematic of that effort, scoring a game-high 19 points to go with a career-high 15 rebounds.

McNeese played without junior center Lewis, who entered the night as the nation’s leading shot blocker but sat due to injury. The Cowboys still managed to reject 10 shots, led by four from Hardy.(Rick Hickman/American Press)