HAMMOND – Northwestern State has lived on the road in 2021. After playing its lone home game of January this week, NSU begins a three-game road stretch at Southeastern Louisiana this weekend.
 
Tipoff is set for 1 p.m. at SLU's University Center. The game can be heard on 92.3 FM in Natchitoches with live streaming audio available on nsudemons.com or through the NSU Athletics mobile app, a free download in the Apple and Google stores.
 
Saturday's third road Demon doubleheader of the year with the NSU men will also be streamed online on ESPN+.
 
The Lady Demons (0-9, 0-4 SLC) got an ungracious welcome home thanks to a dominant performance by Southland Conference leader Stephen F. Austin. While they were able to get quality looks at the basket against a fierce defense, the shots would not fall all night, leading to the lowest field goal percentage of the season.
 
"We did some things that were really nice and I'm proud of them for that," first-year head coach Anna Nimz said following the 87-28 loss to SFA. "But when we had the chance to get that bucket we were shooting over the lip of the rim instead of using the backboard, or taking long 2s instead of using one or two more dribbles to get to a higher percentage shot.
 
"The good news is though the more you shoot the more they'll go in so that's something that's correctable. The nice thing about getting those shots, even though we missed them, is that we are getting them."
 
The offense has struggled this season, especially of late, shooting less than 30 percent from the field in each of the past three games and in four of the last five. Turnovers have largely contributed to the offensive inconsistencies, but after a much improved outing in that category on Wednesday, Nimz is hopeful the tide may be turning on that front.
 
"Against a team that is forcing 26 turnovers a game and we only had 16, that's a small victory, but it's huge for us right now," Nimz said. "It's something we've talked about and something about which we're trying to pump them up. We need to capitalize on that and continue to get better, see if we can't drop that 16 a little more Saturday."
 
The small victories are what Nimz and the staff are building from game over game, continuing to focus on those things through the process of change.
 
"We're trying to take away small victories right now," Nimz said. "We've got to keep finding those positives to continue to encourage the girls to do those things and continue working to fix the things we're missing on.
 
"Sometimes you can gall away from the process when you look at the record, but it's the only thing that works. We've got to hammer down on that and move forward."
 
The Lady Lions (3-5, 2-3 SLC) come into the game having lost their last three in a row, falling to McNeese on Wednesday 80-72. In a game riddled with fouls, SLU lost the battle at the line, keeping the second-half comeback they had planned from coming through.
 
Preseason second-team all-conference junior Morgan Carrier leads the team in scoring at 12.6 points per game and has reached double digits in each of the past four games.