NEW ORLEANS – Winning close games is a skill and a learned attribute.

The Northwestern State men's basketball team will attempt to put recent lessons in close-game situations to use when the Demons travel to New Orleans on Wednesday for a 7 p.m. game.

Fans can catch Patrick Netherton with the action on the radio (95.9 FM) or streaming audio on nsudemons.com or on the NSU mobile app.

The Demons (7-11, 4-5 Southland Conference) dropped a pair of home games this past week by five points or less – a 67-62 loss to league leader Stephen F. Austin and an 84-81 overtime loss to Southeastern Louisiana.

"You have to learn how to win and make the right plays," said NSU coach Mike McConathy. "We have been making the right plays, but there are situations where a guy should have gone back up with an offensive rebound instead of kick it out, or we put a hand on a ball but can't pull it in.

"We had been making free throws at a high rate recently (close to 80 percent), and we shoot 66 percent vs. Southeastern. There were some things we've done well most of the year that we didn't do well against Southeastern."

NSU is 3-4 in games decided by six points or less this season, also scoring SLC wins at Nicholls (73-72) and at UIW (72-66) in tight finishes two weeks ago.

If history is any indication, one could expect another photo finish against the Privateers (6-14, 2-8 SLC). Four of the past seven games have been decided by eight points or less, with UNO winning six of those including the last four.

Former NSU assistant Mark Slessinger is in his ninth season at UNO, guiding the Privateers to top-five finishes in each of the last three seasons.

UNO has struggled this season, but five of the Privateers' eight league losses have been by six points or less. UNO has lost its last three contests, including three points to Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and five points to Nicholls.

The Demons are still one of the youngest squads in the conference in terms of Division I experience.

Among players that have played at least 100 minutes in the first 18 games, there is a combined six years of previous Division I experience.

Juniors C.J. Jones and Larry Owens have four of those Division I seasons with junior John Norvel and sophomore Brian White having the others, although White missed more than half of his freshman season with injury.

Five of NSU's top six scorers in terms of total points – Chudier Bile, Jairus Roberson, Nikos Chougkaz, Trenton Massner and Jamaure Gregg – are newcomers to the Division I level.

The Demons are missing lone seniors LaTerrance Reed (knee surgery after being NSU's leading returning scorer from this past season) and Jacob Guest (knee).

McConathy said newcomers are learning to adjust to enhanced scouting reports from SLC opponents.

"They have to understand that everybody has a scouting report and film on them," McConathy said. "They know your game and know you like a book.

"They try to take your strengths away, so how will you handle adversity? They will try to take away what you like to do. Can you score in a different way? Can you adjust your game to become a better rebounder or find a different aspect where you can impact the game in other ways? Junior college guys have faced similar things, but it's not to the degree of Division I because we have more staff that can create more detailed reports."

The Demons will attempt to recover offensively after shooting 40 percent or below from the field in the last three games. NSU had shot at least 44 percent in five of its previous seven games.

UNO allows teams to shoot 48 percent from the field.

NSU freshman Jovan Zelenbaba had a career-high 14 points Saturday against SLU, which included 4-of-5 from 3-point range.

Other Demons like Trenton Massner and Nikos Chougkaz have had offensive difficulties in the last several games after experiencing large amounts of success in league play.

"If you have Massner, Zelenbaba, (Jairus Roberson) and Chougkaz all offensively on the same page along with Bile, you're going to beat a lot of good teams," McConathy said. "When Jovan makes shots, that adds to what he does defensively because that's his strongest area."

UNO features one of the league's better offenses led by Bryson Robinson, who scores a team-high 17 points per game on an offense that shoots 46 percent from the field.

"We have to take advantage of what we do well, and get the ball inside and score," McConathy said. "Defensively, we need to do a great job of stopping guys from having big nights.

"Robinson is really good, and we have to stop anybody else from having a big night. We can't allow them to do things that they haven't been doing well and take care of the things we can."