CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – As the Northwestern State men's basketball team battled through one of its toughest offensive stretches of Southland Conference play Thursday night, it relied on its defense to keep its conference championship hopes alive.
 
To a man, the Demons understand it will take a similar defensive effort Saturday if they are to collect at least a share of the program's first Southland Conference regular season title since the 2005-06 season.
 
Northwestern State will play for at least that much Saturday afternoon when it faces its fellow league co-leader Texas A&M-Corpus Christi at 4:30 p.m. inside the American Bank Center. The game will air on ESPN3 with free streaming audio be available on www.NSUDemons.com and through the Northwestern State Athletics mobile app, which can be downloaded free for Apple and Android devices.
 
"Early on, we didn't have the right mentality," said sophomore guard Isaac Haney, who had a pivotal set of back-to-back 3-pointers to put NSU ahead to stay Thursday night. "Now we're acclimated to what this league has to offer – good teams top to bottom, respect for every team and every player in this league. Two top dogs going at it should be must-watch TV."
 
The Demons (20-9, 12-4) and Islanders (19-10, 12-4) reached the regular season's penultimate game in opposite ways. Both teams rode extended win streaks – nine for Northwestern State and eight for Texas A&M-Corpus Christi – down the stretch that ended with home losses.
 
The Islanders' setback came Thursday in a polar opposite way than the Demons won at UIW.
 
While the Demons locked down defensively to slide past the Cardinals, 71-66, in a game that featured a combined 55 first-half points with UIW leading 29-26 at halftime. Meanwhile, the Islanders fell to Texas A&M-Commerce, 84-80, as the Lions came into Corpus Christi and shot 63 percent in the victory.
 
The 66 points the Demons surrendered Thursday night were six fewer than their average entering the game and marked the ninth time in 16 Southland games they held an opponent to under 70 points. NSU is 7-2 in those nine Southland games and 12-5 overall this season when their opponent fails to reach 70 points.
 
Northwestern State leads the league in scoring defense in all games (71.9 points per game) and in conference matchups (70.7). Texas A&M-Corpus Christi ranks second in both categories at 72.3 and 71.5 per game, respectively.
 
That commitment to defense put the Demons in position to stay on a collision course with the Islanders, the defending Southland Conference Tournament champions.
 
"We brought the defensive intensity," said senior guard/forward Cedric Garrett, who set season highs in minutes (21:35), points (6) and rebounds (4) against UIW. "We know we have to bring even more defensive intensity against Corpus."
 
The Islanders won the first meeting between the teams, 65-59, on Dec. 31 in Natchitoches, joining New Orleans as the only Southland teams to win in Prather Coliseum and to beat NSU while scoring less than 70 points.
 
The second meeting comes 57 days later – 15 of which saw the Demons and Islanders standing side by side as league co-leaders.
 
"Head-on collision," first-year head coach Corey Gipson said. "Let's do it."