Following two consecutive victories, Northwestern welcomed DePaul into Welsh-Ryan Arena for a Saturday afternoon crosstown nonconference clash.
While DePaul’s Conor Enright opened the scoring with a layup for the Blue Demons (8-4, 0-2 Big East), the Wildcats (9-3, 1-1 Big Ten) stormed out to a 20-2 lead just over five minutes later. The 20-0 run set the tone for an 84-64 NU victory.
“(The run) solidified that we were ready to play,” senior guard Brooks Barnhizer said. “We’ve had some trouble with how we’ve started (games) early in the season, so it was better to come out and kind of throw that first punch.”
During the lopsided scoring run, six of the ’Cats’ nine baskets came off turnovers. Coach Chris Collins said capitalizing off turnovers is a point of emphasis for his team.
“We turned them over 18 times and a lot of those steals turned into transition buckets, which for us is huge,” Collins said. “That’s something we’ve really talked about as a team. We’re a very good defensive team, and we need some of those live-ball turnovers so points can come through a little easier.”
The lead was as low as eight at multiple points, but a late-game surge secured the 20-point margin of victory in favor of NU.
This win, and NU’s 71-60 win over Georgia Tech last week, reflected a smooth reversal of past games, close battles like a 70-66 overtime win over Illinois, a 66-61 win over UNLV, and a 72-69 win over Montana State.
“If we can get to 84 (points) we’ll be hard to beat because we usually defend pretty well,” Collins said.
After falling into the 18-point hole, DePaul narrowed the gap, relying heavily on its three-point shooting. The Blue Demons rank among the nation’s top 20 squads in both three-point percentage and three-point attempts per game.
DePaul drained four threes in a 12 minute span in the first half, but NU’s scoring barely slowed down, with Barnhizer and junior guard Justin Mullins trading treys with their opponent. The ‘Cats were outscored 16-7 to end the half, holding on to a narrower 37-27 lead.
Collins said the Blue Demons’ play style is unlike that of what NU has seen in previous matchups.
“They’re hard to play against, we haven’t really played a team that spread us like that with their shooting,” Collins said. “If you make mistakes they make you pay and our biggest word for this game was discipline because we knew there were going to be times where we would get broken down a little bit.”
Barnhizer came out hot in the second half, scoring three of the first five baskets for the ‘Cats. But the Blue Demons weren’t backing down, keeping the lead hovering around 10 for the first few minutes. An NU 10-0 scoring run pushed the lead up to 18, but the DePaul 3-pointers wouldn’t go away, as the visitors went on an 8-0 run of their own.
The back-and-forth continued, with a 9-0 NU run powered by multiple alley-oop connections from Mullins to graduate student center Matt Nicholson. Late in the half, DePaul hit its 12th 3-pointer of the game, cutting the lead back to single digits. Despite the strong effort, three straight baskets from junior forward Nick Martinelli iced the game in favor of the ‘Cats.
Martinelli and Barnhizer combined for 44 points Saturday. Barnhizer earned the Fisher-McGrath Award, which carries the distinction of most valuable player of the game –– an honor Martinelli earned last season.
“I feel like Nick and I have such a great connection and I call him my best friend,” Barnhizer said. “The first thing I did when I got the plaque was go over to Nick, I pointed at where his name was and was like ‘It was you then me’. It’s kind of cool to see the good things that can happen when you play the game the right way, and I feel like we both do that, so it’s been fun.”
Barnhizer’s 21 points and 12 rebounds marked his fifth straight double-double, becoming the first Big Ten guard since 2009 to do so. Martinelli notched his seventh 20-point game of the season as he strengthened his team-leading 20.6 points per game.
Nicholson added a season-high 14 points and was one of three players with at least three steals. This was the ‘Cats’ seventh victory over the Blue Demons in their past eight meetings.
“I’m excited to keep this series going, I think only one time in my career we didn’t play this game, so it’s been important to me,” Collins said. “You’ve got a Big East team, a Big Ten team, two local teams. We’re both in a good spot and I think it’s going to make for great games.”
NU takes on Northeastern next Sunday at Welsh-Ryan Arena to wrap up non-conference play.
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