NO GO DIEGO—SLU’s Tavaris Nance (22) takes it to the hoop as McNeese’s Diego Kapelan tries to stop him Wednesday night. Nance finished with eight points and five steals as the Lions won 80-61.

A 30-second span of the second quarter against McNeese State offered Southeastern fans a tantalizing glimpse of what the Lions are all about.

Lion senior Kevyn Green buried a 3-pointer on an inside-out-kickout from Warrell Span to give Southeastern a 12-point lead. Then the defense started flying around, surrounding McNeese's Rorey Lawrence and forcing a missed layup, then heavily contesting John Pichon's short jumper off an offensive rebound.

With the Lions double-teaming and out of rebounding position, the Cowboys got another offensive board by Aldryan Wardell, but Tavaris Nance soared to stuff his put-back attempt. Yet another offensive board went to Stephan Martin, but David Ndoumba came flying across the lane to intercept a pass, then hurtled to the other end and got a return pass from Howard Austin for a fastbreak layup and a 14-point lead.

It was a deflating moment for a struggling Cowboys team and an alluring sample of what the Lions are capable of when they're right - which they surely were Wednesday night in storming to an 80-61 rout of the Cowboys in the University Center.

Watching it made the memory of Saturday's pratfall against Northwestern State all the more agonizing.

"We just knew that loss Saturday was a fluke and we needed to come back strong," said Lions center Patrick Sullivan, who popped for a career-high 20 points on 8-for-12 floor shooting to lead the Lions (13-8, 5-3) to a comfortable victory over the reeling Cowboys (8-11, 2-5), who have dropped eight of their last 11 outings.

"We felt like we dropped one; we were very disappointed after Saturday and we wanted to try to redeem ourselves," Lions coach Jim Yarbrough said. "I'm not sure we played the perfect game or anything like that, but we came out with tremendous defensive effort, I think we tried to block out a whole lot better, we tried to share the basketball and move a little bit. We kind of wore them down with some great spurts."

Sullivan's game included a couple of 15-16 foot jumpers and he added six rebounds, two steals and two blocked shots in out-performing 6-11 Cowboys center Kleon Penn.

"I've been working on that a little bit," Sullivan said of the outside jumpers. "I knew I could get in and score against Penn; he's big, but I knew I could get some buckets on him because I'm a little bit quicker, a little more mobile than he is."

Span scored 12 of his 16 points in the second half while Green added 15 as Southeastern moved into a tie for second-place in the SLC East Division with idle Northwestern State by burying memories of Saturday's 1-for-12 trey shooting performance with a 6-for-11 effort, led by Green's 4-for-8 marksmanship.

Southeastern used a 14-6 run midway through the first half that extended a one-point lead to 23-14 on Dekyron Nicks' 3-pointer with 6:41 remaining. Sullivan scored six of the points and Green five in that surge.

The Cowboys really had no answers for the Lions' cat-quick defense, which harassed them into 33 floor shooting and 12 turnovers in the first half. That fastbreaking layup by Ndoumba and his two free throws moments later gave Southeastern a 16-point lead that settled in at 38-25 at halftime.

And McNeese couldn't get anything going in the second half, either. The Cowboys shot marginally better (42.9 percent) but turned it over 10 more times and never got closer than 11 points. Five different Lions contributed to a 15-2 surge midway through the period that jacked the Lion lead to 25 points and essentially settled the issue with nearly 10 minutes still remaining.

McNeese State was led by Jarvis Bradley's 18 points and nine rebounds as the Cowboys outrebounded Southeastern 36-32. Slidell's John Pichon added 12 points and four assists, but it wasn't enough to overcome a night when the Lions once again teased their fans with a glimpse of how good they can be - at times.

"And teasing coaches, too," Yarbrough laughed. "We believe we're one of the better teams in the league. I'm not going to make any predictions. But you can see we've got moments when we're really good, and we've got moments where we have to get a whole lot better."

The next test comes on the road Saturday when the Lions take on SLC East leader Lamar at 7:05 p.m. in Beaumont, Texas.