"She can get to the rim on anybody," Rogers said of the senior guard. "I’ve been telling her not to settle for the three-pointer."

McDaniel didn’t settle for anything on Saturday, and because of that the Cajuns have their first Sun Belt Conference win.

The Houston product had 16 of her career-high 21 points in the first half Saturday against New Orleans, helping UL build as much as a 24-point lead, and the Cajuns held off the Privateers the rest of the way in a 64-55 win at the Cajundome.

The victory snapped a four-game loss streak for UL (5-9, 1-2) and gave the Cajuns their first conference win under Rogers. Just like in their first two league games, the Cajun squad held a solid first-half lead, but this time the hosts didn’t let it get away.

That advantage was 14-4 at the 11:44 mark, 31-12 four minutes before halftime and a game-high 40-16 90 seconds before intermission on Onna Charles’ three-pointer.

"We weren’t focused and ready to play," said UNO coach Amy Champion, whose squad won its first two Sun Belt games over Arkansas-Little Rock and Arkansas State. "UL’s very physical and I’m not going to take anything away from them, but this was our opportunity. We were the better team, but if we don’t rebound and control the boards, we struggle."

The Privateers (8-6, 2-1), who have now lost nine straight to UL, got outrebounded 21-11 in the first half and 41-32 for the game. UL’s Sonora Edwards had eight of her game-high 11 rebounds in the first half, almost outrebounding UNO by herself before intermission.

And McDaniel almost outscored the Privateers in the first half.

"I’m just happy we improved from our last two games," said McDaniel, whose previous career high was 17 points. "We should have won the two before this so we knew there was some pressure. We had to get ourselves a win."

McDaniel hit 6-of-10 shots in the first half including a pair of three-pointers, part of UL’s 50 percent shooting in the first half. That, and 15 UNO turnovers, provided a 42-20 halftime lead.

"Our defense won us this game," McDaniel said. "If we have that, our offense is going to come up with some plays."

The Privateers scored the first five points of the second half and slowly ate into the Cajuns’ margin for most of the final 20 minutes, but UL kept the difference in double figures until the final 12 seconds. UNO scored nine of the game’s last 11 points for the final margin, with guard Brittany Helm getting four of those on the way to leading UNO scorers with 14 points.

"We finally played that 36-to-40-minute game," Rogers said. "When UNO had that gallop against us early, we were able to keep it under control. Our kids played hard, and you’re going to win games if you do that."

Edwards finished with 11 points along with her board efforts and Bronson Rodgers had 10 points including a pair of three-pointers. She ran the point for much of the game, but McDaniel also took a turn running the offense – a key, since Elaine McCants was not on the bench for the second straight game due to illness.

"Honestly, we worked on that for a couple of minutes earlier today," Rogers said of McDaniel at the point. "We’d talked about that as coaches as to what we’d do if we were in that position, but we’d never done it in practice."

UL senior guard Alicia McDaniel, left, steals the ball from UNO’s Jada Frazier, right, during their woman’s basketball game Saturday at the Cajundome. McDaniel scored a career-best 21 points as the Cajuns won handily, 64-55.