By Jason Pugh, Northwestern State Associate Athletic Director for External Relations; featured photo by Chris Reich, NSU Photographic Services
NATCHITOCHES – For the second straight game against a Division I opponent, the Northwestern State men’s basketball team’s fate came down to the final possession.
That doesn’t mean, however, that the full brunt of the Demons’ 65-63 loss to ULM in the opening game of the City of Lights Classic fell on the frantic final 3.1 seconds of Friday night’s matchup inside Prather Coliseum.
“Everyone in sports looks at the late part of the game, which is normal, because it’s so fresh in your mind, but you lose the kind of games in the beginning,” second-year head coach Rick Cabrera said. “Rebounding. They had some big guys out there, big guards. We knew that. It was costly buckets. We’d get on a little run, and they’d get an and-one off a defensive mistake. That last-second shot is not what lost us the game.”
That shot was Tyreese Walton’s jumper with 3.1 seconds remaining that snapped a 63-all tie and negated a fierce late-game rally from the Demons (1-4).
Even after Walton’s bucket, Northwestern had an opportunity to pull out its first Division I win of the season but Jon Sanders II’s heavily contested last-second 3-pointer was short.
Prior to Walton’s shot, Addison Patterson capped an 8-1 Northwestern surge with a long jumper at the 11.5-second mark, which forced a ULM (3-4) timeout.
Patterson scored the Demons’ final eight points, starting with a pair of free throws at the 2:54 mark. He finished with a game-high 16 points and a career-best eight assists. Several of Patterson’s assists went to Jerald Colonel, who tallied a career-high 13 points and blocked a career-best five shots.
Colonel had five of the Demons’ eight blocks as Northwestern held the Warhawks to 40.7-percent shooting, but ULM was plus-6 at the free-throw line, hitting 11 of 16 free throws to Northwestern’s 5 of 9 output.
Conversely, the Demons shot 49.1 percent for the game, buoyed by a 60-percent mark in the second half, hitting 15 of 25 shots.
“You can’t hold a team to 40 percent for the game when you’re at 50 percent for the game, and you lose,” Cabrera said. “I’ve got to help this team learn to win in late-game situations. I’m not giving up on them, because they haven’t given up.”
ULM’s size advantage played a pivotal role in the Warhawks building the largest lead of the game – an 11-point advantage with 11:27 to play. ULM plucked seven of its nine offensive rebounds in the first half of the final 20 minutes.
A second-chance 3-pointer from Jacob Wilson gave ULM a 10-point lead at the 14:09 mark.
A Watson 3-pointer pushed the lead to 11 before the Demons struck back with a 10-0 surge to cut the lead to one on JT Warren’s banked-in 3-pointer with 9:30 to play. ULM, however, answered right back with a 7-0 run before the Demons began to lock down defensively.
“We made costly mistakes in the first 35 minutes,” Cabrera said. “I commend our guys for putting themselves back in the game, but it was a little too late. I have to watch the film to really get it, but I don’t think we guarded the ball really well at times. They had costly baskets.”
Watson’s late jumper handed the Demons their second straight defeat by a bucket, following a 77-75 overtime loss at Rice this past Saturday.
“We’ve got to get this team to be tough-minded defensively,” Cabrera said. “The numbers will show we can, holding a team to 40 percent. Every opponent we’ve played, I think, with the exception of Texas Tech has been in the low 40s or below 40, but they scored crucial baskets.”
The Demons return to action Sunday when they host North Alabama to cap the City of Lights Classic. Tipoff is set for 2 p.m.