McNeese men’s basketball holds student event at campus recreational center

LAKE CHARLES, La. (KPLC) - Wednesday afternoon the McNeese Cowboys held a student event at the McNeese Recreational Center to try to help build up fan support.

Head Coach of the Cowboys Will Wade made it clear when he was hired just a few months ago that student support is the first step towards building a great home-court advantage, and with the event, he felt like they got a step closer to doing just that.

“It’s a big deal, if you’re going to have a good home court, you’re going to have a great student section,” said Coach Wade. “We’ve got 496 seats in our student section, we want to get those filled as much as possible so I thought it was important to bring our players to an event like this on campus at the student rec center and it’s not like we’re asking people to come to the Legacy Center, we’re going to them and heading to their turf, and so I thought that was important as we get going to drive some student traffic and and increase our fan support with the students.”

The team gave away free pizza, 300 custom t-shirts, and a gift card, and had plenty of games for the students to play with the entire team. For McNeese guard DJ Richards Jr. this was a great opportunity for him to introduce himself to the fans that he will play in front of the whole season.

“It’s amazing, just seeing what we’re already trying to turn it into for the fans,” said Richards. “We just love to see the fans coming out because, at the end of the day we’re going to feed off their energy so the more they come, the more it will be better for us and we’re trying to win a lot of games down here and they’ll really help in that aspect.”

The Cowboys will have their first home game at the Legacy Center this coming College of Biblical Studies at 4:00 p.m.

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