The ACU women’s basketball team lost Monday against the Nicholls State University Colonels at Moody Coliseum, 63-39. The loss brings their record to 5-2 at home, 7-6 on the season and 0-3 in conference play.

The Wildcats never even approached the lead, falling into an early 8-0 deficit just 3:38 into the first half.

The team averaged 17.9 turnovers per game before turning the ball over to the Colonels 31 times, a season high for the ‘Cats. The Southland Conference’s highest-scoring 74.2 points-per-game offense also set a new season low for points as the Wildcats put up just 39 on NSU, with 25 of those points coming in the last 20 minutes.

“I really don’t have an answer for today,” said head coach Julie Goodenough. “It was just a disaster from the get-go. We felt very prepared coming into the game. I don’t know that Nicholls did anything that we were not expecting except play twice as hard as we did. And what a great example today of, ‘Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.'”

The team risks falling too far behind in Southland play if it doesn’t begin to fix its recent problems, and Coach Goodenough said the team must be ready to perform every game if it wants to continue to compete in the conference.

“I think tonight our biggest problem was our mindset,” she said. “For whatever reason, we came into the game not really mentally tough and allowed Nicholls’ defense to force us into a lot of turnovers, and it was a sad display. We just didn’t come and play with any heart, didn’t play hard today.”

The Wildcat offense, usually consistent on three-pointers, shot just 3-22 from behind the arc over the course of the game. In return, the Nicholls offense took advantage of its many opportunities, scoring 27 points off Wildcat turnovers and 16 points on second chance shots, another ACU women’s basketball priority.

“I really don’t have an explanation for why we shot so poorly,” Goodenough said. “We shoot thousands of shots, and we just didn’t play very hard. Nicholls just played so much harder than we did, and I’ll take total responsibility for that. I can’t put product on the floor like that. I’ve got to find a way to make sure that they’re more fired up before the game and that they will come out and play with a lot of heart and soul.”

Though the Wildcats didn’t perform up to par, Goodenough still gave the Colonels credit for their performance.

“I thought Nicholls really played well together as a team and we didn’t play with much heart and we didn’t play together as a team, and that’s something that I as the head coach have to figure out how to remedy,” Goodenough said.

The ‘Cats will take on McNeese State at 7 p.m. Wednesday in Lake Charles, Louisiana.