BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Northwestern State hits the court Saturday afternoon at one of college basketball's most fabled venues, Indiana's Assembly Hall, hoping to take a big step forward against a Hoosiers squad hoping to rebound from a three-game skid under second-year coach Tom Crean.

Tipoff is 2:36 CST for the game televised live nationally on the Big Ten Network between the Demons (2-1) and Hoosiers (2-3). They opened last season against each other with an 83-65 homecourt win for IU in Crean's debut after moving over from Marquette.

The game will be broadcast on the Demon Sports Network including flagship station 100.7 FM KZBL in Natchitoches and Shreveport's 92.1 KSYR FM.

The Demons have a pair of easy wins over East Texas Baptist (77-53) and Houston Baptist (92-61) sandwiched around a 94-75 loss nine days ago at Texas Tech, where there were five ties and four lead changes in a hotly contested first half before the Red Raiders took control with a 20-7 run to open the second half.

Northwestern hopes to maintain the shooting touch it displayed Tuesday night against Houston Baptist. The Demons sank 51 percent overall and 46 percent on 3-pointers. Junior college transfer Devon Baker drained six 3-pointers in a 21-point outing in a team-high 24 minutes. Baker's 3-point production was the best by an NSU player since 2000, when Alann Polk popped in six treys in a 25-point outing at Texas State.

It vaulted him into the team scoring lead (15.3 points per game) as he is hitting 48 percent overall, 48 percent (10-21) on 3s, and 89 percent (8-9) on free throws. Senior guard Damon Jones is next at 13.7 points and a surprising 5.0 rebounds per game, sharing the team lead in that category with sophomore forward Charles Clark.  Junior guard Dominic Knight is scoring 11.3 per game, including a career-best 19 at Texas Tech.

Indiana is led by a pair of freshman, Maurice Creek (16.3 points per game, best by a Big Ten Conference freshman) and Christian Watford (7.8 rebounds, 81 percent free throw aim, also tops in the Big Ten among freshmen). Verdell Jones III is the league's top-scoring sophomore with a 13.2 average.

The contest is the second of three in a six-day span for Northwestern, which visits old rival Centenary Monday night.

"It's an opportunity to measure the progress we hope we've made since our last road game at Texas Tech," said 11th-year Demons coach Mike McConathy. "When you use as many players as we do, it can take a while to establish rotations and that especially shows up on defense. We know Coach Crean's team will do an excellent job in the halfcourt offense and he has some exciting young players. We'll need to have our best game to be where we want to be coming down the stretch."

NSU is 1-4 against Big Ten Conference foes under McConathy, winning a 2006 NCAA Tournament first-round game against Big Ten Tournament champion Iowa.

Demons' graduate manager Stephen Tjaden was a student manager on the Hawkeyes' bench in that 64-63 Northwestern victory.

Northwestern assistant coach Mark Slessinger is a native of the Bloomington area. His mother, Barbara, has been an usher at Assembly Hall for 29 seasons, working near the visiting bench, but will take off to watch the NSU-IU contest.

It's the 14th nationally-televised contest for Northwestern in McConathy's tenure, and the 32nd TV game overall.