THIBODAUX, La. – Needing a win to get into next week's Southland Conference Tournament, the Nicholls State University men's basketball team was unable to knock off first-place New Orleans in a 74-64 loss on Senior Day on Saturday at Stopher Gym.
 
The Colonels finish the season with a 14-17 overall record and 7-11 in the Southland in head coach Richie Riley's inaugural campaign. With the win, New Orleans (18-11, 13-5 SLC) won the Southland Conference regular season title outright.
 
Nicholls fought back twice from large deficits in the second half, trailing by as much as 14 points. A 17-5 run fueled by two 3-pointers from Jahvaughn Powell and one from senior Johnathan Bell made the score 46-44 before UNO answered with an 8-0 run.
 
The Colonels found themselves down 10 points again with six minutes to go, but put together another run to make things interesting. The 3-point shot was a factor again with Bell hitting from deep and senior Ja'Dante' Frye was fouled on a 3 and went on to make all three free throws to put the score at 65-62 UNO with two minutes remaining.
 
But Erik Thomas drained a jumper for the Privateers and after an empty possession by Nicholls, UNO tacked on two free throws to extend the lead to seven. The Colonels were forced to foul the rest of the way as New Orleans went on to earn the season sweep.
 
Powell led Nicholls with a game-high 23 points, while Frye closed out his career with 17 points. Bell finished with 14 points and senior Liam Thomas wrapped up his stellar season and career with four blocks, giving him a program record 130 for the season and 293 for his career.
 
UNO was led by Thomas with 21 points and Christavious Gill added 14.
 
STATEMENT FROM THE SOUTHLAND
 
It was led to believe that the Colonels could clinch a berth in the Southland Conference Tournament with a loss, but the information was inaccurate. Please see the statement below issued by the Southland Conference Commissioner Tom Burnett.

"In the review of the five-way 7-11 finish in the Southland Conference men's basketball tournament tie-breaker process, a step was overlooked in the advance information shared by the Conference office before today's final regular-season games.
 
Nicholls and Central Arkansas were advanced from the five-way  comparison to a head-to-head comparison.  In that scenario, the teams were compared with the teams they both played twice, in order from top to bottom. 
 
Both teams were 0-2 against New Orleans, and both were 1-1 against Southeastern Louisiana.  The original information shared Friday indicated the tie could not be broken at this point, and that Nicholls won the tie-breaker in a subsequent comparison. 
 
This was incorrect. 
 
There was an additional team that both Nicholls and UCA played twice that should have been compared with: Northwestern State.  UCA was 1-1 vs. Northwestern and Nicholls was 0-2 vs. Northwestern. 
 
Thus UCA gets the seeding advantage, and the No. 8 tournament seed, over Nicholls. 
 
The Southland Conference greatly regrets the oversight that, even after multiple reviews, led to inaccurate information provided to both the Nicholls and UCA basketball programs, the media and public."