Northwestern forward Tavaras Hardy’s third dunk in a three-minute span at the 10:33 mark of the first half of Saturday’s game between Northwestern and Chicago State gave the Wildcats a 19-14 lead, causing Cougars coach Bo Ellis to call a timeout.

As Hardy walked over to the sideline, he nudged NU coach Bill Carmody.

“Let’s keep ’em under 20 this half,” they agreed.

The Cats (3-1) closed the half on a 19-5 run, accomplishing their goal by a point. They then went on to outscore Chicago State 42-23 in the second half for an 80-42 victory before a paid crowd of 2,868. Had it not been for a pair of free throws by Chicago State’s Danny Osby with three seconds left, NU would have doubled the Cougars’ score.

“This was a game we needed,” Hardy said. “They were a good tune-up for other teams we’re going to face.”

The senior led the team with 16 points on 5-for-6 shooting. He also had seven rebounds.

Sophomore guard Jitim Young scored 15 points on 7 of 11 shooting. He also had three steals and a blocked shot, and led the team with eight rebounds.

“Jitim was all over the place, stealing balls, taking balls out of guys’ hands,” Carmody said.

NU guard Collier Drayton, who is nursing a sore ankle, did not play against the Cougars as a precaution. Junior Jason Burke started in his place, giving sophomore guard Drew Long a chance to step into Burke’s vacated sixth-man role.

Both Burke and Long excelled in their new roles. Burke led the Cats with five assists in 29 minutes of play. Long had four assists, two rebounds and seven points (with two three-pointers) in 21 minutes — all of which were career highs.

Hardy was pleased with the all-around effort, adding that the upperclassmen and the freshmen meshed well.

“Guys were excited to play tonight and were very susceptible to leadership,” he said. “Everybody was picking each other up. That’s what we need to do.”

The game wasn’t a disaster from the start for Chicago State (0-3), which jumped out to leads of 4-0 and 6-2 in the opening minutes.

“They took us out of our offense in the first half and pressed us into doing some things we hadn’t planned on,” Carmody said. “They worked our tails off.”

The Cougars had given up more than 100 points in each of their first two games, losing to Marquette (102-49) and Buffalo (100-92).

Meanwhile, NU came into the game tied with Michigan State for last place in the Big Ten in scoring offense at 68.3 points per game.

But Saturday’s game turned out to be a statistical massacre in the Cats’ favor. Besides notching the largest margin of victory (38) since a 1998 triumph over Oakland, NU outrebounded Chicago State 40-25, shot 56.4 percent from the field to Chicago State’s 34.6 percent, made 12 of 17 free throws compared to 4 of 11 for Chicago State, outscored the Cougars 46-20 in the paint and scored 23 points off 17 turnovers.

When Ellis perused the statistics after the game, he sighed, paused and let out a groan.

“We are not this bad,” Ellis said. “I know that as a fact, and (my players) know it.”

Ellis praised the Cats’ execution and effort.

“They kicked our butts on the backboard,” he said. “We’re talking about a team that is very patient. We were totally prepared — we knew what Northwestern was going to do.”

Clark Bone led the Cougars with 14 points. No other Chicago State player had more than six points.

Every NU player scored except for Drayton and freshman Thomas Soltau. Junior Winston Blake had 11 points and three steals, and freshman Vedran Vukusic — despite suffering his first missed three-point attempt of the season early in the first half — finished with 10 points. Vukusic is now 8-for-9 from behind the arc this season.

The Cats tried out their new zone defense against the athletic Chicago State squad. Carmody was pleased with the effort but knows that the team will have to improve in order to be able to compete with better opponents.

“We have so much to work on,” he said. “On defense, the ball’s getting to the post too much. We need more of a physical presence.

“On offense, that’s the hard thing, to keep getting better and better. You don’t beat too many teams with 14 turnovers.”

Up next for the Cats is Florida State (2-1), which visits Welsh-Ryan Arena on Wednesday night as part of the ACC/Big Ten Challenge.