NATCHITOCHES – McNeese head coach Dave Simmons will reunite with members of the 2005-06 Northwestern State Demons basketball team that stunned the NCAA Tournament world when the Demons upset 4^th-seed Iowa in the first round of the 2006 tourney, when his Cowboys visit NSU at 3:35 on Saturday for Northwestern's reunion day.
 
Simmons was an assistant with the Demons from 1999-2006 and that was his final season before being named head coach at McNeese for the following season.
 
"It'll be great to see those guys," said Simmons who will be looking for his team to capture its first win on the road this season. "I haven't seen a lot of them in a long time. I'm curious to see what they look like now 10 years later as I'm sure they want to see how I've changed too."
 
Simmons has been all smiles since his Cowboys (6-15, 4-7 SLC) defeated another former Demon co-worker in Mark Slessinger and his UNO Privateers by a 87-76 score on Thursday night to snap a three-game losing streak. Now he's hoping the Cowboys can carry that momentum into Prather Coliseum for the ESPN3 televised game.
 
"The kids are feeling really good right now," he said. "But we have to get over that hump on the road."
 
McNeese is 0-12 away from Burton Coliseum this season and has not won a non-tournament conference game on the road in nearly a year (defeated UCA 77-60 on Feb. 24 of last year).
 
The Demons (6-15, 3-8) saw their three-game win streak halted this past Monday in an 11-point loss at first place Stephen F. Austin.
 
"They're definitely playing better lately," said Simmons of the Demons. "The key for us is to make our shots, rebound and play good defense. I thought we played really good defense in the second half against UNO. We need to carry that into Saturday's game."
 
The Privateers led 46-43 behind 53 percent shooting in the first half before McNeese switched to a zone defense in the second half and held UNO to 37 percent shooting while forcing 10 turnovers to lead to the Cowboys outscoring the visitors by 14 points in the final 20 minutes.
 
McNeese has also been getting accurate aims as of late from freshmen James Harvey and Jarren Greenwood. Harvey tied a career-high with 23 points on Thursday night behind 5 of 8 shooting from 3-point range. Meanwhile Greenwood scored 13 points for his fourth straight double-digit scoring game since returning from an injury suffered against NSU on Jan. 23.
 
"James is shooting the ball really well for us, and Jarren too," said Simmons. "We put Austin (Lewis) back in the starting lineup (Thursday) and he played really hard on defense for us."
 
Jamaya Burr leads the Cowboys in scoring on the season with a 14.2 average but Harvey tops the team in conference only games with a 13.8 mark. Harvey's also third in the league with 31 made 3s when counting just league games.
 
The Demons are led in scoring by Zeek Woodley's conference-best 22.8 scoring average.
 
Saturday's game is the second of three games for the Cowboys in five days. McNeese will host Southeastern Louisiana at 8 p.m. on Monday on an ASN televised game to begin a four-game home stand.