Demons fall victim to LSU’s second-half surge

By: Jason Pugh, Associate Athletic Director for External Relations

Box Score BATON ROUGE – The Northwestern State men’s basketball team survived to live dangerously for 20 minutes of Friday night’s nonconference game at LSU.

The Demons held a one-point lead at halftime despite double-digit turnovers in the opening half, but they weren’t so lucky in the final 20 minutes as the homegrown Tigers capitalized on 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,” the second-year head coach Rick Cabrera said. “I don’t know if those words can correlate, but I’m going to put them together tonight. I’m proud of the way we competed in the first half and came into (the locker room) with a lead, but I I’m disappointed because it wasn’t the team I know (in the second half that reflects on me that 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) built a 26-25 lead at halftime thanks to a tenacious 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 was enough to give the Demons their second-half lead against a Southeastern Conference team this season, adding to 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 and overcome 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 second-half push 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, where he combined 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 the 3-point range.

Carter and Sears were two of four Tigers to reach double figures, while Sanders’ 14 points made him the lone Demon to reach that plateau. Junior guards Love Bettis and Mika 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 not to 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 7pm inside the McDermott Convocation Center.