Men’s Basketball

Three minutes into Saturday’s game at Welsh-Ryan Arena, Rutgers had committed three turnovers, Sanjay Lumpkin was less than a point away from his season scoring average and Northwestern held an 8-2 lead.

All 7,833 in attendance could already tell what kind of game it was going to be.

Thirty-seven minutes later, a school record 33 assists and a whopping 45-25 rebounding advantage had helped the Wildcats (18-11, 6-10 Big Ten) cruise to a 98-59 win over the still-winless in conference Scarlet Knights (6-23, 0-16).

“Certainly, this was a feel-good day for us,” coach Chris Collins said. “I was really pleased with how our guys approached the start of the game … our energy, especially defensively, was great.”

Senior guard Tre Demps led the way with 24 points on 8-of-13 shooting while senior center Alex Olah added 14 points and 10 rebounds. Sophomore guard Bryant McIntosh set a career high with 13 assists, but fell one assist short of current assistant coach Patrick Baldwin’s program record.

McIntosh said he came out of halftime with his eyes on the record and was rightly called out by Collins for passing up some open shots in favor of passing. Collins said he was persuaded by Baldwin himself to give McIntosh a few more minutes to try to match the record, but a 14th assist proved not in the cards.

Demps, however, praised his teammate’s playmaking even without the record.

“When you get a paint touch to a kick-out 3, those are the easiest ones to shoot,” Demps said. “Bryant did a really good job sharing the ball … and we were ready to play.”

The contest was perhaps best emblemized by a sequence midway through the first half in which Rutgers missed a fast-break layup, then smashed the put-back attempt off the back of the rim, leading to a fast-break the other way that was ended by Tre Demps pulling up and draining a 3-pointer.

Or perhaps it was even better emblemized by a sequence midway through the second half in which Rutgers’ Bishop Daniels airballed a free throw — so badly it didn’t even skim the outside of the net – and, after Daniels made the second, freshman center Dererk Pardon slammed down an alley-oop play from sophomore guard Scottie Lindsey at the other end.

The storyline was the same all afternoon long: Rutgers consistently committed embarrassing mistakes while NU converted its own opportunities with ruthless efficiency.

Demps put together one of his best first halves of the season, scoring 17 points — including a perfect 5-for-5 accord from 3-point range — and adding eight rebounds in the opening frame as the Cats scored 40 of the game’s first 50 points and led 48-18 at halftime.

The final box score represented a home team domination across the board: NU pulled down more offensive rebounds (18) than Rutgers had defensive rebounds (17) and made more 3-pointers (17) than Rutgers made total field goals (16). Even the railing in front of the student section, where small posters reading “3” are hung for every 3-pointer the team makes, wasn’t long enough to fit them all.

The Cats operated with an aura of confidence and a standard of spotless execution they have often lacked over the past few months, thrashing through Rutgers’ defense to set up wide-open threes and physically assertive lay-ups.

As the game wore on, coach Chris Collins spread plentiful playing time among every player on the team. Junior forward Nathan Taphorn scored a season-high 13 points, freshman guard Jordan Ash scored his first points since Jan. 31 and freshman walk-on forward Charlie Hall played almost three minutes, his career high in Big Ten play.

It was the play of the team’s two seniors, Olah and Demps, who nevertheless stole the show. With two games remaining and a chance to earn a first-round bye in the Big Ten Tournament on the line, the pair of veterans began the regular season’s final week in convincing fashion.

“Alex and I had talked about how, for the rest of the season, we just wanted to try to set the tone,” Demps said. “I wanted to be aggressive offensively … and it just happened that the shots went in.”

This story was updated with postgame quotes.

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Twitter: @BenPope111