Northwestern State’s played 11 basketball games.
As it pertains to Dave Simmons and his McNeese State coaching staff, the last one is all they have to rely upon.
The Demons played their first game without do-it-all senior guard Zeek Woodley on Wednesday evening, cruising to an 86-66 win against Louisiana College — the Division III school that’s defeated the Cowboys each of the last two seasons.
Woodley, the 6-foot-2, two-time All-Southland Conference selection through whom the Demons’ offense runs, broke his wrist in Northwestern’s 100-93 loss to Rice on Dec. 19.
He is expected to miss six to eight weeks, the program announced in a news release, ruling him out for the team’s conference-opener against McNeese on Saturday and leaving him in doubt for the teams’ rematch Jan. 21 at Burton Coliseum.
At the time of his injury, Woodley had 40 more shot attempts than any of his teammates and averaged 17.6 points per game — the only Demon, at that time, averaging more than 10 points per game
“It’s kind of hard,” Simmons said Tuesday when asked how he planned to scout the Demons given this news. “You know, typically, what they’re going to do as far as offensive and defensive scheme, but you never know how they’re going to adjust without (Woodley’s) 17 points. Who’s going to take up that slack? For every man’s injury there’s another opportunity for a kid to step up.”
Ishmael Lane’s 14-point outing Wednesday pushed him into double figures for the season. He and senior guards Sabri Thompson and Tra’von Joseph — all starters — are the most logical options to compensate for the gaping void Woodley leaves.
Young talent, too, will need to mature fast. Freshman point guard Josh Boyd had 12 points, seven assists and five rebounds against Louisiana College while sophomore Reginald Kissoonial had the first double-figure scoring game of his career, turning a tenuous six-point halftime lead into a 20-point rout.
"I feel better now,” Demons coach Mike McConathy said after the game. “I didn't feel real good during the game, especially during the first half. There was too much thought process, trying to figure out where we were going, as if we had never practiced or played together before … We took one or two or three steps back, but fortunately we took a step forward after halftime and did some good things."
Assigning the game proper perspective is imperative, too. It was a Division III opponent with two victories all season, albeit with one against the Cowboys. Southland Conference play will test the Demons’ resolve and cohesion — something not lost on Simmons or the Demons themselves.
See, Northwestern is accustomed to such scenarios. Jalan West, the Demons’ senior point guard and career leader in 3-pointers, suffered a season-ending knee injury in the season-opener last season. The Demons never quite recovered, limping to an 8-20 season.
“That’s one of the things that concerns me, sometimes teams band together when they’re (facing) adversity,” Simmons said. “It’s been a difficult time when they lose those best players. It’s a difficult part of the game and I can understand what coach McConathy is going through because we’ve had Stephen Ugochukwu out on some very tough games.”
Ugochukwu, McNeese’s sole consistent rebounder among a thin, depleted frontcourt, missed four games earlier this season with a pulled hamstring. Lance Potier assumed Ugochukwu’s role and, now, is the team’s second-leading rebounder and has cemented a starting spot alongside Ugochukwu.
Now the task falls to someone — anyone — at Northwestern.
“It’ll be somebody filling that role,” Simmons said. “Hopefully they’re not as good as Zeek Woodley and hopefully we can go up there and get us a victory.”
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