Nicholls women to vacate Southland win

The Nicholls State women’s basketball team’s road to the Southland Conference Tournament got a little bit more difficult this week.

The Southland Conference announced that the Colonels would be forced to forfeit one of their league victories after “the institution discovered an ineligible student athlete participated in the game.”

The victory the Colonels will be forced to forfeit is the team’s Jan. 7 78-59 victory over UT-Arlington.

This week’s ruling will rescind the victory from the Colonels and will give it to UT-Arlington.

The Colonels will also receive a loss for that game and a loss will be removed from the Maverick’s conference total.

The change in record for both teams will be reflected immediately in the league’s standings and will be reflected in tournament seeding for the upcoming Southland Conference Tournament.

The Colonels have two regular season games remaining and still control their own destiny to get into the field.

But the setback does leave open a greater possibility that the team could miss the field.

“It’s an unfortunate situation, but it should not diminish the accomplishments of our women’s basketball team,” Nicholls Athletics Director Rob Bernardi said in a press release issued by Nicholls’ Athletics Department. “Coach [DoBee] Plaisance has done an incredible job building this program, and I fully expect that the team will finish strong and earn a spot in the conference tournament.”

The press release didn’t specify the player in violation.

Sources close to the program say the player found to be ineligible is Holly Martin, a 6-foot-1-inch junior who transferred to the program this season after spending time at Pratt Community College.

Martin started five games for the Colonels and averaged 3.1 and 1.5 rebounds per game.

But the Australian-born post player hasn’t played, nor dressed out for the Colonels since their Jan. 18 loss against Central Arkansas.

Nicholls State women’s basketball coach Dobee Plaisance

NSU Athletics