.THIBODAUX, La. - The Nicholls State University men's basketball team wraps up the regular season with three road games, starting with a meeting with first-place McNeese on Saturday afternoon. Tipoff is scheduled for 4 p.m.

Following Saturday's game, the Colonels head to Natchitoches for a Monday night contest against Northwestern State. Both games will be streamed on ESPN+.

Nicholls (16-12, 11-4 SLC) heads to Lake Charles, which is also the site of the Southland Conference Tournament that starts next weekend, with hopes of catching the Cowboys in the standings. McNeese (26-4, 14-1 SLC) has a three-game lead with three games to go so any victory the rest of the way would clinch an outright championship and the No. 1 seed. If McNeese drops all three, Nicholls would still need to win all three of its remaining games to earn a share.

The Colonels are also still in contention for a bye in the postseason. Nicholls and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi are tied for second in the standings with the top two teams earning a double bye. The Colonels and Islanders, which split the season series, are 2.0 games up on Lamar and Southeastern with the third-place and fourth-place finishers earning a single bye. Nicholls closes the regular season at SLU on March 7.

Nicholls will be looking to carry its hot shooting into the matchup with McNeese after making a season-high 18 three-pointers in the home finale against UIW on Monday. The services of the Colonels' top two scorers, Diante Smith (14.9 ppg) and Jamal West Jr. (14.2), were not needed in the win as the duo finished with a combined five points. Robert Brown III (28 points), Michael Gray Jr. (25) and Oumar Koureissi (14) all scored career highs to lead the offense. Brown was blistering hot by draining 8 of 8 from behind the arc and Gray nearly matched him with a 6 of 6 night. As a team, Nicholls shot a season-high 69.2 percent from three-point range.

With three games to go, Brown leads Nicholls in scoring in conference play at 16.9 points per game. He and Smith (15.7 ppg in conference) are both shooting over 40 percent from three with Brown's 45 percent leading the SLC. He is also averaging a league best 3.0 made three-pointers per game.

McNeese has won six straight since its lone conference loss at Southeastern. Included in the streak was a dominating 74-47 win over the Colonels in Thibodaux which saw the Cowboys shoot 64 percent in the second half to outscore Nicholls 45-25. McNeese nearly saw its streak come to an end last game but Antavion Collum drained a three-pointer in the final seconds for his lone bucket of the game for a 58-56 win at Lamar.

Northwestern State (9-19, 7-8 SLC) hosts Lamar this weekend before its meeting with the Colonels on Monday. The Demons are also still alive for a possible first-round bye as they trail Lamar and SLU by 2.0 games. 

NSU will be looking to avenge a 73-66 loss to the Colonels on Feb. 5. Cliff Davis scored 25 in the setback, helped by 7 of 11 from three-point range. Davis is ninth in the SLC in scoring  at 14.3 points per game.