NSU starts busy week with TV game at SFA Monday night

NACOGDOCHES, Texas -- Two-time defending Southland Conference champion Northwestern State plays three road games in six days, beginning Monday night with a regionally-televised visit to its oldest SLC rival, Stephen F. Austin. Tipoff is 7 o’clock at Johnson Coliseum for the Fox Sports Southwest-televised battle between the Demons (12-10 overall, 7-3 in the SLC, tops in the SLC East) and the Lumberjacks (14-8, 7-3, third in the West Division). It’s the only meeting of the regular season, and the 102nd overall in a series dating back to 1925-26, between the old rivals, with NSU riding a two-game win streak against SFA. Northwestern goes to McNeese State Wednesday night, then visits Tennessee Tech Saturday night in a BracketBusters matchup. Northwestern suffered a rare homecourt loss in its last outing Thursday night, falling 90-80 to hot-shooting Sam Houston State (57 percent overall and on 3s). That outcome ended a season-best six-game win streak and dropped the Demons into a tie in the overall SLC standings with SFA. Seedings for next month’s O’Reilly Auto Parts SLC Tournament are determined not by divisional standings, but winning percentage in league games, and the first tie-breaker is head-to-head competition, whether there were one or two contests between the teams during the season. SFA ended a two-game skid last Wednesday night with a 60-54 win at Central Arkansas. The pace of the game figures to be a big issue Monday night. Northwestern is 27th nationally (second in the SLC) with a 77.8 scoring average. In the last seven games, they’re scoring 10 more points (87.9) a game. Demon foes, in the same stretch, have scored 79.2 ppg, no lower than 62. SFA is 24th nationally (first in the SLC) in scoring defense, allowing only 60.1 points, just 58.1 in its last seven games, and no more than 70. Meanwhile SFA has scored 61.8 ppg in that stretch, with a high of 82. Two Demons, Trey Gilder and Keithan Hancock, and two Lumberjacks, Antuane Miller and Matt Kingsley, rank among the top six players in the conference in points per 40 minutes. Gilder tops the stat, compiled by www.midmajority.com at 26.7 points per 40. SFA’s Miller is second at 26.1. Two 7-footers, James Davis of Lamar and Chris Daniels of A&M-Corpus Christi, are tied at 24.3. Hancock would get 23.3 points per 40, while SFA’s Matt Kingsley is at 23.1 in the projection. Gilder and Hancock do not start for the Demons in coach Mike McConathy’s 12-man rotation system.