BATON ROUGE – Northwestern State makes its penultimate non-conference road trip of the season on Sunday when it takes on one of the best teams in all of college basketball.
 
For the second straight season the Demons (4-5) make the trip to Baton Rouge to take on a nationally ranked LSU (10-1) team. It is the 12^th time in the past 13 seasons that NSU will face a ranked opponent during its non-conference slate.
 
Tipoff against the No. 7 ranked and defending National Champion Tigers is set for 2 p.m. and will air nationally on ESPN with Pam Ward and Christy Thomaskutty providing play-by-play and analysis. 
 
Against one of the elite teams in the nation, the Demons remained focused on the things that aim to move them forward in reaching their best basketball during conference play that starts in a little over two weeks.
 
While the defense has been the largest talking point over the past month, the offense showed more steady growth against the Power 5-transfer laden ULM in ball security, execution and shot selection.
 
While the overall shooting percentage came in at 31 percent for the night, the amount of open looks early in the game that just missed falling, did not discourage the Demons who scored more than 40 points combined in the second and third quarters.
 
"It's a lot about continuing to grow our basketball I.Q.," head coach Anna Nimz said. "We've been focusing more on that the past few days and it's made it difficult on the girls. It's not for lack of effort, it's a matter of catching the ball a foot too low or cutting a step too soon. The second we can get those kinds of details tightened up I think you'll see the offensive production go up. 
 
"We've done a good job of late creating some shots but haven't been connecting on them like we'd like to. The more disciplined and composed we can be, we're going to be able to see some more fluidity throughout our game."
 
Coming off the loss to a much-improved ULM team with all those top-level transfers that provided plenty of offensive firepower to combat the stingy Demon defense, the Demons face the most potent offense in the country. 
 
The Tigers have scored more than 100 points in a game five times this season and leading the country in points per game at 96.4. In their most recent outing on Tuesday night against McNeese, the Tigers set program records in points scored (133) and margin of victory (89) in a single game.
 
Six different players are averaging double-figures on the season led by DePaul transfer Aneesah Morrow's 19.0 points and true freshman Mikayla Williams' 18.5 per game. The 2023 Final Four Most Outstanding Player Angel Reese comes in with an 18.3 point, 10.0 rebound average in seven total games.
 
"It's no different than how we approached the game on Tuesday at ULM," Nimz said. "We're going to have to play with that composure we've seen more of lately and just play our game. Regardless of who the opponent is, at the end of the day, we have to guard up and stay true to what we do."