Final Stats BEAUMONT, Texas. – Hitting the road for the first time in two weeks, the Nicholls State University men's basketball team led by as many as 18 points and held off a Lamar rally as the Colonels defeated the Cardinals 74-63 Tuesday night at the Montagne Center in Beaumont.

With the win the Colonels improve to 7-17 on the season and 6-8 in league play, clinching a spot in the Southland Conference tournament for a record fifth consecutive year. The win also snapped a five-game losing skid for the team, as Lamar falls to 3-23 on the year and 1-13 in conference play.

With just a 5-2 lead after the first five-and-a-half minutes, Nicholls went on a 14-8 run that put the team up 19-10 and had the team up by double-digits for most of the game. However, Lamar cut that lead drastically over the final 12 minutes of the game, as the Cardinals made it a seven-point game with less than three minutes remaining down 67-60. The Nicholls defense clamped down on the Cardinal run after that, holding Lamar to just three points for the rest of the second half while closing the game out at the free throw line.

In what turned out to be a total team effort, the Colonels had three players score in double figures on Tuesday night, and eight players with at least three points, led by T.J. Carpenter who returned from a two-game absence to score 17 points on 6-of-12 shooting, making four shots from behind the 3-point line. Carpenter scored 14 of the 17 in the first half, as Fred Hunter scored 15 snapping his streak of consecutive 20-point games, while JaMarkus Horace scored 11.

Nicholls had 18 assists on 26 made shots against Lamar, a season high for the Colonels as a team this season, tying the Cardinals with 30 points in the paint and turning 11 offensive rebounds into 13 second chance points.

After four missed shots and two turnovers by both teams to start the game, The Colonels broke the seal on the game after a Linden Smith-Hyde 3-pointer gave the Colonels the early 3-0 lead, which grew to as many as 17 points by the end of the first half. After those first few misses, the Colonels couldn't miss as they were shooting 70 percent from the field nine minutes into the contest, finishing the half with a 53-percent clip from the floor.

Unlike the previous two games, the Colonels wasted little time getting everyone involved as nine different players saw at least five minutes of playing time in the opening 20 minutes, and it paid off as seven different Nicholls players scored in leading to the Colonels' 45-28 halftime lead. Of Nicholls' 16 made baskets in the first half, seven came from behind the 3-point line as the Colonels were 7-for-11 from three with Carpenter drilling four off of the bench.


The Colonels return to the court on Saturday afternoon for the team's last non-conference game of the season against UTSA in San Antonio.