NATCHITOCHES – The Northwestern State women's basketball team opens a four-game homestand with its first-ever meeting against new Southland Conference member Incarnate Word on Thursday night at 5:30 in Prather Coliseum.

NSU (10-9, 3-4 SLC) enters after two losses on the road at Central Arkansas and Oral Roberts. UIW (8-10, 2-4 SLC) lost at home to Sam Houston and Lamar.

"Incarnate Word has had some solid guard-play and its leading scorer is an interior post player," said co-head coach Brooke Stoehr.

UIW's leading scorer is Rose Whitehead (14.2 ppg) and Ifunanya More (7.4 rpg) leads the Cardinals in rebounds.

"[Whithead] has great size very similar to (Angela) Beadle at Sam Houston State," said Stoehr. "We'll have to do a good job of pushing her off of the block and forcing her to score over the top without getting to the foul line."

Keisha Lee leads Northwestern State in scoring at 15.4 points per game. She scored just under half of the team's points at Oral Roberts on Saturday with 25 of NSU's 51 points.

Trudy Armstead is the NSU leader in rebounds with 5.7 a contest, and Janelle Perez averages 4.3 assists an outing.

The Lady Demons average 63.4 and allows 64.7 points a game.

Northwestern State shoots at a 41 percent clip from the field and 31 percent from 3-point range.

UIW averages 62 points an outing and allows opponents to average 65 a game.

The Cardinals shoot 37 percent from the floor and 32 percent from behind the arc.

"They are one of the top teams at getting to the free throw line and converting. Something that we are going to have to be very good at is defending without fouling," said Stoehr.

As a team, Incarnate Word averages 74 percent from the free throw line, which ranks at the top of the league.

Northwestern State ranks 35th in the country and second in the Southland Conference in personal fouls per game.

"They'll look to spread us out and give us a four-out look with post touches as well as to penetrate and get to the free throw line," said Stoehr.

NSU will continue its homestand with another conference newcomer in Abilene Christian at 1 o'clock on Saturday.