NATCHITOCHES – After a week-long road trip to open the season and a week of postponed games, Northwestern State will finally open the home portion of the 2023-24 season on Wednesday night.
 
The Demons' (0-3) first game inside Prather Coliseum this season tips off at 6:30 p.m. on Thanksgiving Eve as they take on in-state foe Grambling live on ESPN+. It is the first meeting between the two teams in two years.
 
"Coming off that Tulsa game I thought they had gotten better from each game we played and started to climb through that game," head coach Anna Nimz said. "Obviously we had a setback being postponed for the week, so we're excited to get back in Prather but more than anything to just get back on the court."
 
It will have been 10 days since NSU took the court for a game when the ball goes up on Wednesday evening. With the momentum the team was steadily building through the week-long season-opening road trip 10 days feels more like 100 days as they return to action and look to recapture the progress following a solid performance at Tulsa.
 
Against a team that had scored more than 86 points in each of its first two games, the NSU defense held the Golden Hurricane to 65 points behind a pair of lengthy defensive stretches without allowing a single field goal. NSU outscored Tulsa 44-43 over the final 30 minutes of the game.
 
"Although the score maybe wasn't indicative of it in those first two games, I think all the way through they played hard," Nimz said. "I thought they played together and that there weren't too many moments where we fell apart. They genuinely want to play for each other. 
 
"We created open shots, sometimes made one pass too many, but we got better every game and saw growth in the team and individuals. Growth that we want to keep seeing as we get back into the flow of the season."
 
That growth will be tested on Wednesday by a Grambling team that knocked off Arizona State a week ago and are among the nation's leaders in forced turnovers this season. Bolstered by the 41 turnovers they forced in their season-opener against Champion Christian, the Tigers rank 11^th in the country in forced turnovers per game.
 
They forced 17 each in their two most recent games against the Sun Devils and Houston.
 
The Demons did a decent job through their first three games at maintaining possession of the basketball, something that plagued them at times throughout last season. While the three to four unforced turnovers per quarter they saw against Tulsa is something the Demons continue to try and improve, it will be a talking point for them against a scrappy Grambling squad.
 
"You can't win if everybody isn't playing for each other and you're not doing it for 40 minutes," Nimz said. "Grambling is coming off a huge win against Arizona State, watched them again on Sunday, and they just play really hard and intense. We're going to have to play together and match that intensity and continue to do what we've done. Play for 40 minutes with a good amount of grit."