NATCHITOCHES – Ask any of the Northwestern State men's basketball team's tri-captains about who the best defender between them is and a window into their relationship emerges.
 
"I'm the best defender. I don't know why they think I'm not," Ja'Monta Black said. "I'm the best defender. I take charges. I play D. I don't get scored on. I'm the best defender."
 
"I don't know who the best defender is, but I take the most charges," Isaac Haney said.
 
"It's me," DeMarcus Sharp said. "I never get scored on. If you don't foul in games, you're not playing any defense. Ja'Monta never fouls. He doesn't take charges. Go back and look at the film. Monta gets scored on more than anybody. Me and Haney play the most defense, but I'm definitely the best defender of the three.
 
"Monta's definitely three. Monta cannot defend like me. I'm the best defender on the team. (Special assistant to the head) coach (Jimmy) Lincoln can vouch for me."
 
The banter between the three guards who joined first-year head coach Corey Gipson as imports from Missouri State sounds like the playful arguments between brothers. Their relationship is emblematic of what has helped carry the Demons to an 8-2 record entering Saturday's 2 p.m. matchup at Rice.
 
The Demons' matchup with the Owls (7-3) can be seen on CUSA.tv. Free streaming audio of the game is available through www.NSUDemons.com and on the Northwestern State Athletics mobile app, which can be downloaded free for Apple and Android devices.
 
"They get it," Gipson said of his triumvirate of guards. "When you graduate to the captain of a program, that means you're a true extension of the coaching staff. They never take a day off. They never look for a reason to take a day off. If you saw our scrimmage (Thursday), you would have thought we were in the Final Four.
 
"Because they have that approach, everybody else on the roster has to follow suit. We have some other guys on the roster who are graduating to that. They have the approach each and every day, but (the captains) have had that."
 
While the Demons' captains enjoy their back and forth and less-than-subtle, yet playful, jabs at one another, the trio shares a business-like approach that mirrors their head coach.
 
That shared approach helped lead them from Springfield, Missouri, to Natchitoches.
 
"It was an easy decision for us (to come to Northwestern) because we knew how we got down and how we could go about business," said Sharp, a two-time Southland Conference Player of the Week who leads the Demons in scoring at 16.1 points per game. "We're going about business the right way as everyone can see."
 
As three of 11 new players in the NSU program, the captains brought with them familiarity with one another as well as Gipson.
 
It did not take long for the outside world to see how solid the player-coach relationship was.
 
At the under-4-minute media timeout in the Demons' 64-63 win at then-No. 15 TCU, Gipson pulled Black and Sharp aside and had an animated conversation with them. Minutes later, Sharp hit the game-winning jumper in the lane to give NSU its first true road win against an Associated Press Top 25 team.
 
"He grabbed me and Ja'Monta because early in the second half he saw us motioning to come out of the game," Sharp said. "We had played a lot of minutes. He told us we can overcome anything and to not try to come out of the game so fast. Just keep playing. We're going to be tired but continue to push. He was covering his mouth because he couldn't say certain stuff.
 
"He was basically telling us keep pushing even when you're tired and you'll overcome. We overcame and got a W."
 
Gipson didn't need a translator that night in Fort Worth but it certainly did not hurt the first-year Demon coach to have familiar faces to reinforce his message early in his tenure.
 
"It's his first year as a head coach, and he had a lot of new players who had never seen him before, never heard of him before," said Black, who leads the Southland Conference and ranks 10th nationally in made 3-pointers per game (3.44). "We're pretty used to him. A lot of times when he tells them something, we walked up behind him and tell them what he really meant by that."
 
The message Black, Sharp and Haney first heard in the Midwest has taken root in northwest Louisiana.
 
It was burnished in the offseason and has filtered throughout the roster, which has produced NSU's first 8-2 start in 70 years. A win against Rice on Saturday would make NSU 9-2 for the first time since the 1952-53 season when the Demons started 10-2.
 
"Everyone on the squad has come to respect coach Gipson at the ultimate respect level," said Haney, who paces the team with 21 steals. "We knew he was about business when we came with him. We can relay that to the guys. You have to listen to him and do exactly what he says. Very, very early on that was hard for some guys to understand.
 
"Now we have that respect level and commitment. Whatever he says, that's what we're going to do."