 "Photo: Brad Tollefson")
It’s 1,208 miles roundtrip from Natchitoches, La., to Lubbock, and the Northwestern State Demons will roll through every one of them for a 40-minute game against Texas Tech at 7 p.m. today in the United Spirit Arena.
Northwestern State decided to offset the travel costs it will incur later in the season by busing the Demons in for a matchup Tech is favored to win.
“Where we’re at, we have to make the most out of our dollars,” Northwestern State coach Mike McConathy said. “We know we have a huge challenge ahead of us.”
The Demons’ travel arrangements are unique.
McConathy said the team left Natchitoches at about 7 p.m. Tuesday per an NCAA travel rule that states teams cannot leave for an opposing destination earlier than 48 hours before the game starts.
Because the team traveled by bus and the trip is so long, McConathy and his staff decided to stop in Arlington Tuesday night. On Wednesday, the Demons practiced at Texas-Arlington — in their conference rival’s gym — for a last day of preparation for the Tech game.
From there, the team got back on the bus and finished the remaining 330 miles of the trip.
McConathy said a game against Tech is worth the great lengths his team had to go through to get to Lubbock. He said this game is a valuable learning experience for his players in preparation for their schedule in the Southland Conference.
It might be easier to play major programs closer to Natchitoches such as SMU, TCU, Houston or Rice in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex or Houston area.
But for the Demons, it’s about who you know.
Assistant coach Mark Slessinger’s relationship to Tech’s coaching family, Bob and now Pat Knight, is the main reason for tonight’s matchup, McConathy said.
“Mark grew up around coach (Bob) Knight and Pat,” McConathy said. “We played (in Lubbock) a few years ago — and bused there that time. I’m not saying those other places don’t offer good competition, but for us scheduling, it has a lot to do with relationships.”
Not only do the Demons believe the task at hand will be tough, but it is also Northwestern State’s first road game of the season. The Demons (1-0) won their first game of the season against East Texas Baptist 77-54.
McConathy said he knows how the Red Raiders will play based on the Demons(3-0) 95-71 loss at Tech in 2007. The biggest improvement he said he sees at Tech from then to now is the quality of Tech’s guards, especially John Roberson.
Tech also has added depth at the guard position with the addition of Nick Okorie from South Plains College in 2008 and David Tairu this season. Tairu won the first Big 12 Conference Rookie of the Week award of the season Monday after averaging 14 points per game through Tech’s first three contests.
Forward Darko Cohadarevic said something opposing teams may not notice yet is the vast improvement in Tech’s defense.
“We’re playing great team defense,” he said. “That’s what we didn’t have last season. That’s what has won us our first three games.”
Tech players, on the other hand, believe they know how the Demons will try to play them based on their experiences last weekend against underdogs South Dakota and the Demons’ fellow Southland Conference member Texas A&M-Corpus Christi — both wins for Tech.
“I expect for them to be really athletic,” Okorie said. “We just have to stay focussed, the thing that can beat us is ourselves. The single thing we pretty much have to do is play defense and if we play defense we’ll win the game.”
Northwestern State will depart Lubbock for a game Tuesday against Houston Baptist. After that, however, the Demons will head out to Bloomington, Ind., for a game against the Indiana Hoosiers — flying on that occasion.
“They love basketball up there, so it should be a fun and tough game for our program,” McConathy said. “We’re flying to Bloomington — but it’s not more than four hours farther than Lubbock.”
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