NATCHITOCHES – Prather Coliseum, where Northwestern State is 9-1 this year and 22-4 since the start of last season, will be a welcome game site Monday night for the Demons as they try to complete a season sweep of rival McNeese State and tighten the Southland Conference East Division title race.

Tipoff is 7 p.m. between the Demons (14-11 overall, 7-4 in the SLC) and the Cowboys (12-10, 8-2). Northwestern rallied from six down with four minutes left last month in Lake Charles to nip McNeese 64-61 on a buzzer-beating 3-pointer by junior guard Shamir Davis.

The Cowboys haven't lost since, reeling off five straight victories, three on the road while raising their mark in conference road games to 4-1. Meanwhile, the Demons carried a five-game win streak onto the road last week, but were whipped at Lamar before bad shooting doomed them to a 66-61 defeat Saturday night at Southeastern Louisiana.

The rare Monday night conference game is a byproduct of the league's participation in the upcoming Sears BracketBusters games  Saturday. The NSU-McNeese contest was slated to be played Feb. 18 but had to be moved off that day to allow both teams to participate in the BracketBusters event, with NSU at home at 2:30 against Campbell.

The Demons have Wednesday off. The Cowboys are not so lucky. Both teams will play for the third time in six days Monday night, and McNeese will play again Wednesday before its BracketBusters game Saturday.

Demons' coach Mike McConathy isn't worried about the busy schedule impacting his team Monday night.

“They're young men. They will be ready to go,” he said. “We better be.  McNeese is playing its best basketball. We have to get back to the aggressive, tough defensive basketball that we were playing until last week. We need to stay in front of the basketball and we need to create more turnovers that lead to easy baskets.”

Davis leads NSU with a 13.5 scoring average, but totaled only 14 points in last week's two defeats. Senior center William Mosley is averaging 10.9 points, 9.9 rebounds and 4.4 blocked shots per  game, while senior guard Louis Ellis is at 10.8 points per game after posting 17 Saturday night.

Mosley needs only one block to crack the NCAA career top 10 list for blocks with 441, tying current New Orleans Hornets center Emeka Okafor, who played collegiately at Connecticut. If Mosley simply gets his 4.4 average Monday, he will jump from 11^th to seventh in NCAA history. He is 13 away from tying Alonzo Mourning of Georgetown for fifth.

McNeese features the returning Southland player of the year, graceful 6-4 swingman Patrick Richard, who is averaging 19 points per game in league play. The Cowboys are coached by Dave Simmons, who steered McNeese to last year's SLC championship and was an assistant coach on McConathy's NSU staff from 1999-2006.