NATCHITOCHES – Zeek Woodley was back home recuperating from wrist surgery. Malik Metoyer was in street clothes, nursing a surprising knee injury. Devonte Hall picked up his fourth foul three minutes into the second half.

When Hall, the junior point guard for Northwestern State's basketball team, sat down, the Demons held a meager four-point edge over Division III Louisiana College. Their leading scorer was home Tweeting his encouragement. Metoyer, a rising sophomore, was watching helplessly, having tweaked a knee in a pickup game during the holiday break.

Veteran coach Mike McConathy was more than a little worried, with the Demons staring ahead at their Southland Conference opener at home Saturday afternoon against rival McNeese.

Then NSU's depth kicked in. The Demons (6-5) erupted, blowing open the final non-conference contest and cruising to an 86-66 triumph over the Wildcats (2-6) at Prather Coliseum.

With a dozen players getting at least 11 minutes, nobody playing more than 23 of the 40 minutes, McConathy's wave substitutions revealed some promise for the next 6-8 weeks without Woodley, NSU's scoring leader for three seasons.

Freshman point guard Josh Boyd had career bests of 12 points, 7 assists and 5 rebounds, mostly in an impactful eight-minute span after halftime. Sophomore forward Reginald Kissoonlal posted his first career double-digit scoring total with 10 points, blocking a couple of shots, while freshman forward Jordan Bell snatched 8 rebounds and also blocked two shots. Freshman forward Jacob Guest joined the career-night output with the first seven points of his Demon career.

Most of that production came in the second half, beginning with a decisive five-minute burst as NSU mounted a 21-2 run and built a 69-46 lead with 11:23 remaining.

Two starters, senior guard Sabri Thompson (a season-high 18 points, 16 in the first half) and sophomore center Ishmael Lane (14 points), had above-average outings as NSU struggled to find itself into the second half.
There was an unhealthy amount of self doubt, said McConathy.

 "I feel better now. I didn't feel real good during the game, especially during the first half. There was too much thought process, trying to figure out where we were going, as if we had never practiced or played together before," he said. "(It was) so far from the team I saw at Rice, the team I saw against ULM. We took one or two or three steps back, but fortunately we took a step forward after halftime and did some good things."

Thompson took the lead from the outset. He drained all four of his 3-pointers in the first half.

"I needed to start out with a spark, hit some early shots to get my team going," he said. "Everybody else just fell in and helped out. Our defense picked up. The wave that was in went to a zone and it seemed to get (LC) off their paces."

McConathy also thought defense made the difference. The Wildcats made only 9 of 27 second-half shots while NSU sank 57 percent, finishing at 51 percent for the night.

"We kept them off balance and did a lot better job defensively, didn't give them easy baskets. I was really disappointed we didn't win the rebounding battle by more than five (41-36), but that's a credit to LC because they were hungry and competed extremely well with a size disadvantage."

NSU will get back to work Thursday with an 18-game Southland Conference schedule ahead, and Woodley unavailable for much of it.

"We put a lot in over the last 36 hours before this game, and we'll continue to adjust to fit who we have now," said McConathy.