Northwestern State still alive for Katy despite lopsided loss at Nicholls

THIBODAUX – The only silver lining Wednesday night for the Northwestern State basketball team had nothing to do with a stunning 83-60 loss at Nicholls.

Despite the outcome, the Demons remained alive for the No. 8 seed in next week’s Southland Conference Tournament. NSU will host Central Arkansas Saturday afternoon at 3 with the winner in prime position to claim the slot, although upsets in either of two other league games that day could spoil that forecast.

“I’m almost always a silver linings guy,” said 20th-year Demons coach Mike McConathy, “but there wasn’t any silver to be found in what we did tonight. But we’re still hanging in there going to Saturday.

“I told our team just now, I’ve never been as disappointed in a team as I am at this moment. It wasn’t that we didn’t play hard, but we didn’t play with purpose. Do our guys care as much as their coaches and their fans do? It didn’t look that way tonight and they have to answer that question Saturday.

“We’ve got to take care of our business, win on Saturday, and hope somebody doesn’t pull an upset in two other games. We’ve been pretty good on Saturdays. We need to get there again,” he said.

NSU dropped to 11-19 overall and 6-11 in the conference. Nicholls avoided elimination from tournament eligibility while sweeping the season series with NSU and rising to 13-17 overall, also 6-11 in the league.

The Demons turned it over on their first four possessions of the game, falling behind 11-0. That started a bonanza for the Colonels, who took 21 turnovers and scored 33 points on them while NSU managed to get just eight points on 11 Nicholls miscues.

“That start set a miserable tone for us, a great one for them,” said McConathy. “A team came in and played free and loose, and got up 11-0, and we never got our footing afterward. We gave up 33 points off our turnovers, and it’s hard to fathom how we turned the ball over that way.”

NSU ran off seven straight points to draw near, but Nicholls launched a 13-2 burst that gave the Colonels command for good. The Demons were never closer than 15 points in the first half’s last eight minutes or afterward.

“We couldn’t have played any worse than we did tonight,” said McConathy. “You have to give Nicholls credit because they came out roaring to go, they took advantage from the jump ball, and they knocked down shots and made good basketball plays.”

Nicholls compounded Northwestern’s mistakes by draining 7 of its first 11 shots from behind the 3-point arc, en route to a 12-for-28 outing from distance. The Colonels sank 50 percent overall as Jeremiah Jefferson scored 25, leading four double-digit scorers.

DeAndre Love’s 11 points topped the Demons, with Ishmael Lane and Malik Metoyer each scoring 10. That senior trio will play their final regular-season contest aiming for a season sweep of UCA and hoping for regular-season champion Sam Houston State (beaten 91-87 at home Wednesday by UCA) to knock off arch-rival Stephen F. Austin, and for third-place Southeastern Louisiana to win at Nicholls.