Demons maintain poise to hold off HCU

NATCHITOCHES – For 32 minutes Monday afternoon, the Northwestern State men’s basketball team was in control of its Southland Conference matchup with Houston Christian.

Then the Demons relaxed and found themselves in a typical conference dogfight. Down the stretch, Northwestern State righted itself and made enough plays to grab a 69-64 victory against the Huskies inside Prather Coliseum.

“We’ve been through a lot,” first-year head coach Rick Cabrera said. “We have some losses we don’t ever want to remember, so I’m going to cherish every win we can get. I don’t like the way it transpired the last eight minutes. The alternative is a loss. If we lose that game, it’s bad. They got the stop they needed, made the free throws and got the win.”

Starting with a 5-0 spurt in the final 42 seconds of the first half, the Demons (4-13, 2-2) outscored HCU 18-6 across a five-minute stretch bridging halftime to built an 18-point lead at the 15-minute mark of the second half.

The lead grew to 20 points with 12 minutes to play when Braelon Bush split a pair of free throws following a technical foul assessed to HCU coach Ron Cottrell.

To that point, the Demon offense was flowing and NSU’s defense was locked in. Through the first 32 minutes of the game, three Huskies – Jay Alvarez, Dominic Capriotti and Michael Imaraiagbe – combined for all 44 of HCU’s points, and Northwestern State held a 19-point lead at the under-8 media timeout.

From there, the Huskies (3-12, 1-3) awakened, starting with a 9-0 blitz in an 81-second window that forced Cabrera to take a timeout.

As HCU continued its comeback, the Demons endured a tough final eight minutes offensively – a stretch in which all six of their points came from the free throw line. Northwestern State’s final field goal of the game came at the 7:56 mark on a twisting layup from Chase Forte.

“We switched the offensive pop to defensive pop,” said senior forward Justin Wilson, who scored 11 points and grabbed six rebounds against an HCU frontcourt that featured two of the Southland’s top five rebounders. “We paid attention to our defensive details.”

Those defensive details – and a pair of pivotal offensive rebounds – allowed the Demons to secure their second straight Southland Conference win and complete a 2-0 weekend.

The Huskies had the ball down two before Alvarez, who had a game-high 28 points, was called for a traveling violation with 1:09 to play.

The Demons worked the clock down before Bush missed a 3-pointer, but Duane Posey grabbed the final of his team-leading 10 rebounds to give the Demons a second possession. Bush’s layup with 19 seconds to play was off, but Wilson corralled his seventh rebound and was fouled.

He split the ensuing free throws, leaving HCU with 15 seconds left and a three-point deficit.

Northwestern State was able to keep HCU’s Dominic Capriotti, who was 4-for-6 from 3-point range, from getting off a shot, forcing him to pass to Marcus Greene, whose 3-pointer was long. Jimel Lane grabbed the backtap and was fouled with 1.8 seconds to play.

Lane calmly sank two free throws to move the Demons to .500 in conference play.

“We use the word believe – just believe,” Cabrera said. “Coaches try to make a lot of things too tough strategically. Get to the line, have some confidence, have some swag, move your shoulders a little bit and make the free throws. If you have that attitude and that pop, you’ll make those free throws. He had hit. I didn’t worry, because when you worry, you don’t have faith.”

Bush (15) and Wilson (11) were the only two Demons to crack double figures – with Bush scoring 12 of his points in the first half after not scoring a first-half point against McNeese on Jan. 8 and UIW on Saturday. Northwestern State, however, had four players finish with at least six points, including three who tallied nine apiece – Cliff Davis, Chase Forte and Chris Mubiru.

Davis added a career-high four assists without a turnover while Forte pilfered three of Northwestern State’s 10 steals.

“Just being confident and aggressive,” Bush said. “Our coaches wanted our guards to be aggressive first. If we can score, we can score. If not, that’s when we back it up. I just went out there and shot with confidence.”

The Demons return to action Saturday when they travel to New Orleans to start a two-game Southland Conference road trip. Tipoff is set for 4 p.m. at Lakefront Arena.