GAME STATISTICS

NATCHITOCHES – Northwestern State's 67-65 exhibition basketball win Wednesday night over scrappy Ouachita Baptist provided a “teachable moment” for 13^th-year Demons head coach Mike McConathy, whose squad squandered a 16-point lead with miserable free throw aim and poor rebounding but relied on tenacious defense to hold off the Division II Tigers.
 
OBU's Eric Braeuer missed a 12-foot baseline jumper in the closing seconds and NSU's Demetrice Jacobs, who committed a turnover with 14 seconds to go, controlled the rebound as time expired to preserve the victory by the Demons. Louis Ellis scored a game-high 13 points with William Mosley adding 12 for Northwestern, which was outrebounded 58-38 and shot only 51 percent (22-43) on free throws compared to 81 percent (25-31) by the Tigers.
 
The Demons prevailed in part due to 11 blocked shots by six players, including three by Mosley, who led NCAA Division I with a 4.9 average last year. Ouachita Baptist sank only 31 percent of its shots and was forced into 27 turnovers as Northwestern had 16 steals, three apiece from Shamir Davis, Patrick Robinson and Jacobs.
 
The Tigers picked up 12 points each from Braeuer and Emmanuel Englulu with Nigel Ramsey and Austin Mitchell each scoring 11. Ramsey had a game-high 13 rebounds while David Day added 10 for the visitors, in their first year under former Texas State coach Dennis Nutt.
 
Northwestern led most of the way, pulling away from the game's 11^th and final tie at 24-all 4:23 before halftime with an 11-1 burst, and extending it to a 24-8 run over eight minutes sandwiching halftime to go ahead 48-32 with 15:49 remaining. But poor free throw shooting, coupled with near perfect aim at the line by Ouachita Baptist, kept the Demons from expanding the advantage and allowed the Tigers to rally.
 
A Mitchell 3-pointer with 7:19 left cut the NSU lead into single digits for good at 58-50. Three free throws by Mitchell at the 3:24 mark drew OBU within 61-60 before a basket and two free throws by Mosley pushed the Demons ahead 65-60.
 
The visitors twice cut it down to two points, but NSU's Robinson dumped in a pair of free throws with 1:20 to go to double the Demons' edge. A layup by Colt Fason with 41 seconds left halved the lead and OBU got a last chance on Jacobs' traveling call as Northwestern tried to chew time off the clock with 14 seconds to go.
 
“It's much better for us to have the game come down to the last seconds, and Ouachita Baptist earned the opportunity as hard and as gutty as they played,” said McConathy. “Our effort was good and that was probably our saving grace. We were mentally bad offensively and defensively much of the game, our free throw shooting was inexcusably bad, and the rebounding numbers were terrible for us.
 
“But now we can learn from this game much more so than if we had maintained the comfortable lead or blown it open, which if we had made free throws at a decent rate, was within our reach,” he said. “We'll be getting after it in practice from this point forward and our team has a much better understanding of why.”
 
The Demons open the regular season next Friday night, Nov. 11, at home against LeTourneau. OBU has another exhibition game ahead against Arkansas-Little Rock.