By Jason Pugh, Northwestern State Association Athletic Director for External Relations; featured photo by Chris Reich, NSU Photographic Services
BATON ROUGE – The Northwestern State men’s basketball team survived living dangerously for 20 minutes of Friday night’s non-conference game at LSU.
The Demons held a one-point lead at halftime despite double-figure turnovers in the opening half, but they were not as fortunate in the final 20 minutes as the homestanding Tigers took better advantage of Northwestern’s second-half miscues en route to a 77-53 victory inside the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
“I’m proud and I’m disappointed at the same time,” second-year head coach Rick Cabrera said. “I don’t know if those words can correlate, but I’m going to make them correlate tonight. I’m proud of the way we competed in the first half and came in (the locker room) with a lead, but I’m disappointed because that wasn’t the team I know of (in the second half). That reflects on me. I need to do a better job of making sure they’re prepared and not satisfied going into the second half.”
While neither team shot well in the opening minutes, the Demons (2-5) fashioned a 26-25 halftime lead thanks to a dogged defense that limited LSU (6-1) to 35-percent shooting and a pair of shot-clock violations.
Eleven first-half points from Jon Sanders II and a plus-seven advantage on the boards were enough to give the Demons their second halftime lead against a Southeastern Conference team this season, joining the six-point advantage they had at Oklahoma on Nov. 11.
The Demons’ defense allowed them to maintain a lead for 13-plus minutes in the first half, overcoming 12 first-half turnovers. Northwestern allowed just five points off its miscues.
In the second half, the Tigers made the most of those chances, sparking a 35-8 start to the half.
After holding LSU’s leading scorer Cam Carter scoreless in the first half, Northwestern saw Carter spark a 5-0 opening push in the second half with a 3-pointer, a steal and an alley-oop pass that led to a Corey Chest dunk.
In the second half, LSU turned seven Northwestern turnovers into 10 points.
Carter had all 15 of his points in the second half, combining with fellow guard Jordan Sears to score 24 of the Tigers’ 52 second-half points as LSU shot 53.1 percent from the field in the final 20 minutes, including 50 percent (7 for 14) from 3-point range.
Carter and Sears were two of four Tigers who reached double figures while Sanders’ 14 points made him the lone Demon to reach that plateau. Junior guards Love Bettis and Micah Thomas each had eight points for the Demons, who shot 10 for 35 from the field in the second half after finishing the first half on a 1-for-8 drought.
“The goal of our preparation is to not have live-ball turnovers,” Cabrera said. “I told our guys, ‘I’d rather you kick it up into the stands than have a live-ball turnover, especially against these guys.’ They took advantage of it, which is what good teams do.”
The Demons return to action on Thursday when they travel to San Antonio to open Southland Conference play at UIW. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. inside the McDermott Convocation Center.