By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

MACOMB, Ill. — Chad Boudreau was more unhappy with how Western Illinois’ men’s basketball team reacted after its first win of the season than he was with his team’s struggles in getting the victory.

The 74-63 win over Coe College on Monday night at Western Hall was a lot more difficult than the Leathernecks’ coach wanted, but it was still a win that was needed after an 0-4 road start to the season.

“It’s good after that trip to come back and get this game out of the way,” Boudreau said. “And I don’t know that this helps our confidence, but I hope so, and that’s what was my message after the game. I was more upset after the game by how we walked off the court, how we went in the locker room. I still have extreme confidence in them, and I want them to walk off the court with extreme confidence.”

The Leathernecks trailed Coe, an NCAA Division III school that had opened the season with four consecutive wins, 55-53 with 11:25 to play before holding the Kohawks to just eight points the rest of the game. There were 18 lead changes in the game, and the game was tied on seven occasions.

“We just can’t expect to come into our home gym and just have teams lay down for us,” said guard Lucas Lorenzen, who led the Leathernecks with 14 points. “You know, we’ve got to come in and just expect just to play well and execute every time. We’ve just got to be better at some things we must work on.”

The Leathernecks opened the season with losses at Radford, Iowa, Cal State-Bakersfield and Cal Baptist before coming home for a three-game home stretch that includes a Friday game with Coastal Carolina and a Sunday game against North Dakota.

“There’s going to be games in our league, there’s going to be games coming up this weekend where people are more talented than us, and we have to execute,” Boudreau said. “If we can execute, we can beat people that are more talented. If we don’t execute, we’re going to struggle in those games. And it’s about execution. We’ve got to come out and execute.”

Coe shot 51.7% in the first half with an offense that stretched the Leathernecks.

“They really executed their stuff,” Boudreau said. “They ran. They were sharp. They were crisp. They made the extra pass. There weren’t a lot of wasted dribbles. And they got us moving. They got us scrambling. “We got turned around, we got mixed up. And when they got us extended, they drug us all over the place.”

Western Illinois took the lead for good on Francis Okwuosah’s 3-pointer with 11:10 to play.

“I think we just came together at halftime, and we just said we’re not executing. It’s too quiet, there’s not enough energy on the bench,” Lorenzen said. “Everybody just stepped up and just started bringing more energy. We got more connected. We stuck together and came out with the win.”

The Leathernecks got a lift off the bench from Goanar Biliew, who finished with 13 points in 21 minutes after starting forward Antwawn Massey went out with a possible concussion after getting hit on the back of the head.

“Goanar came out and he just dominated the paint on offense and defense, and he did a phenomenal job,” Lorenzen said. “And he’s been doing that in practice. He was awesome for us tonight.”

The win was a lesson for the Leathernecks.

“I’ll use more from this game than I did the last four,” Boudreau said. “It’s what you can do when you execute. Coe executed and they almost beat us. And if Coe can beat us, then what can we do if we execute and we do our stuff crisply and run it? If we can execute like that, we can be pretty good at both ends of the court.”