Box Score HAMMOND – With two and a half minutes remaining in the first half of Monday night's Southland Conference men's basketball game, Northwestern State was feeling good.
 
The Demons had taken their first double-figure lead of the game against homestanding Southeastern inside the Pride Roofing University Center and appeared ready to stretch their season-long win streak to four.
 
In the final 155 seconds of the half, however, things changed and Northwestern State struggled to find its groove the rest of the way before falling 71-62 to the Lions.
 
"All credit to Southeastern," first-year head coach Rick Cabrera said. "They did a really good job of slowing us up, getting us late in the clock. There was a lot of 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. They won that game. We made a lot of mistakes. We have to fix those mistakes so we can be consistent and get better."
 
Once the Demons (5-14, 3-3) took a 34-24 lead on Justin Wilson's layup with 2:35 to play, Southeastern (7-12, 2-4) closed the half on a 9-0 run that swung the momentum to the Lions' side.
 
SLU had a chance to take the halftime lead but missed an open layup at the buzzer.
 
Wilson powered the Demons to the early lead with eight first-half points.
 
"The last two games, he's been very good," Cabrera said. "Our guards offensively help him be better."
 
Southeastern, however, kept Wilson off the scoreboard in the second half and began methodically to pull away in the second half behind the trio of Nick Caldwell (21 points), Roger McFarlane (18) and Alec Woodard (16).
 
While those three carried the Southeastern offense, the Lion defense made life tough on the Demon ballhandlers, forcing 17 turnovers. Thirteen of those were steals by SLU players, including seven in the second half. Southeastern won the points off turnover battle, 21-10, scoring 15 points off nine second-half NSU miscues.
 
The Demons' 17 turnovers came one game after NSU committed just five turnovers in a 25-point win at New Orleans on Saturday.
 
"That's where I'm most disappointed with these guys is the live-ball turnovers, the carelessness with the ball," Cabrera said. "We haven't done that in a long time, so it was shocking to see it tonight. Part of that was (SLU), but I think we have good enough guards to where Chase (Forte) and Brae(lon Bush) don't have eight combined turnovers. You're not going to win many games like that."
 
Forte had a career-high three 3-pointers, including two big shots in the second half that stopped Southeastern runs, but NSU could not overcome the points off turnover differential nor the Lions' advantage at the free throw line.
 
Southeastern supplemented a 40.4-percent shooting effort from the field by going 24-for-29 from the free throw line while the Demons attempted 14 free throws, hitting nine.
 
Those differences – and a 38-percent shooting night for the Demons – led to the end of NSU's season-long, three-game win streak.
 
"We guarded well enough to win the game," Cabrera said. "We held them to 40 percent field goal percentage, which is the fifth straight game we've done that, but offensively we were very stagnant. We had open looks that didn't go in. The whole scouting report was to attack the zone. That's what other teams did in (SLU's) four-game losing streak – attack the zone and spray for shots. We had some good looks that didn't fall. That's just part of it."
 
Cliff Davis led Northwestern State with 15 points while Forte added 12 and seven rebounds as NSU won the battle on the boards by four.
 
The Demons return to action Saturday when they host Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. The game is the second half of a doubleheader with the women's teams from each school. Tipoff is set for 3 p.m. inside Prather Coliseum.