Northwestern Travels To No. 17/16 Purdue Tuesday

2/15/2016 2:34:00 PM | Men's Basketball

By: Nick Brilowski

NORTHWESTERN BASKETBALL: GAME DAY INFORMATION
DATE	OPPONENT	TIME	LOCATION	BROADCAST	LIVE STATS
Tue., Feb. 16	Purdue	6 p.m. CT	Mackey Arena; West Lafayette, Ind.	BTN and BTN2GO	GameTracker
720 WGN, Sirius 81, XM 81: Dave Eanet and Joey Meyer BTN: Dave Revsine and Stephen Bardo Social: Twitter (@NUMensBball and @NU_SportsLIVE) \| Instagram (@numensbball) \| Facebook Game Notes: Northwestern \| Purdue

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EVANSTON, Ill. -- Northwestern returns to the road Tuesday when it travels to West Lafayette to take on No. 17/16 Purdue. Tip-off is set for 6 p.m. Central time.

The Wildcats will be playing their second of four consecutive games against conference teams that they face only once during the regular season.

Northwestern is coming off a 58-56 home win over Illinois on Saturday. Tre Demps and Scottie Lindsey led the Wildcats with 18 points apiece. Demps hit four consecutive 3-pointers over a span of 2:44 late in the second half to turn a four-point deficit into a five-point lead.

Demps enters Tuesday's contest with 1,403 career points, four shy of Shon Morris (1985-88) for 11th place in NU history.

Northwestern has hit at least nine 3-pointers in each of its last four games. The Wildcats hit a Big Ten season-high 12 triples vs. Minnesota (Feb. 4) and Ohio State (Feb. 9). NU is 12-3 when hitting nine or more 3-pointers in a game this season.

Tuesday's matchup features the two leading active shot-blockers in the Big Ten. Purdue's A.J. Hammons has 323 career blocks which ranks second in school history while Alex Olah is Northwestern's career leader in blocked shots with 176.

The series between Northwestern and Purdue has been very tight lately with the Boilermakers holding a slim 12-11 edge going back to the 2001-02 season. The Wildcats won the most recent matchup between the teams played in West Lafayette, winning 74-65 on March 9, 2014. Drew Crawford led Northwestern with 27 points.

Scouting Purdue
The Boilermakers are coming off a 61-56 loss at Michigan on Saturday. Caleb Swanigan led Purdue with 14 points. A.J. Hammons leads the team with averages of 14.5 points and 2.7 blocked shots per game to go along with 8.0 rebounds per contest. Swanigan ranks first in the Big Ten with an average of 8.6 rebounds per game. Purdue is holding its opponents to a Big Ten-low 63.6 points per game. Matt Painter is in his 11th season as the head coach of the Boilermakers.