NATCHITOCHES – First-year Northwestern State head men's basketball coach Rick Cabrera spent most of the year extolling Chase Forte's on-ball defensive ability.
 
As it turns out, he was not the only one. Forte was named to the five-man Southland Conference All-Defensive Team, which was announced Saturday morning – a day ahead of the league tournament.
 
Forte, a 6-foot-4 junior guard from Raleigh, North Carolina, ranked third in the conference in steals per game in both conference games and in overall games at 1.7 per game. He added 10 blocks, including a pair of two-block games in Southland play.
 
Forte swiped a career-high six steals in his Northwestern State debut against Dallas Christian on Nov. 6 – the first of 17 multi-steal games in his first Division I season.
 
Forte put together a string of six straight games with multiple steals from Jan. 22-Feb. 10, averaging 2.2 steals per game in that span.
 
Throughout the season, Forte often drew the defensive assignment against the opponent's top scorer. He was the primary defender when the Demons held New Orleans' Jordan Johnson, then the nation's No. 4 scorer, without a point for the first 22 minutes of a 25-point NSU win on Jan. 20.
 
Forte and the Demons open Southland Conference Tournament play at 7:30 p.m. Sunday against No. 7 seed Texas A&M-Commerce in Lake Charles.