Northwestern Completes Season Sweep of Minnesota

2/4/2016 9:21:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

McIntosh becomes NU's single-season assist leader in the win

EVANSTON, Ill. (AP) — Chris Collins knows when his top players perform at a high level, confidence tends to trickle throughout the rest of his Northwestern line-up.

The timing of Tre Demps and Bryant McIntosh stepping forward couldn't have better.

Demps scored 23 points with eight assists and McIntosh finished with 20 points and six rebounds as Northwestern snapped a five-game losing streak with an 82-58 win over Minnesota on Thursday night.

The backcourt tandem played a key role in sparking a Northwestern perimeter shooting attack that hit four of its first five 3-point field goals. Demps and McIntosh combined for seven of the Wildcats' 12 3-pointers while only committing two turnovers at a time when the Wildcats needed a boost of confidence.

''I just thought they had a great command of the game tonight,'' Collins said.

Coming off a stretch of four straight Top 25 opponents - all Northwestern losses - Demps and McIntosh sparked Northwestern, which never trailed and then used a pivotal 8-0 run at the end of the first half to build a 14-point halftime lead.

''It's nice when we're both clicking together,'' McIntosh said. ''Unfortunately, throughout this year, either I've been going and he hasn't played as well as he could or it's been the other way around. It was nice to have a night when we were both clicking on all cylinders.''

Northwestern shot 61.5 percent from the field in the second half to maintain its lead. Minnesota, meanwhile, never got into any sort of rhythm offensively and remains winless in Big Ten play.

Jordan Murphy scored 14 points and Nate Mason finished with eight for Minnesota (6-17, 0-11), which lost for the 12th straight time dating back to Dec. 16 when the Gophers defeated Chicago State.

''We had looks and we couldn't make them,'' Minnesota coach Richard Pitino said. ''We had times when we let it deflate us on the defensive end.''

Northwestern Notes vs. Minnesota – Feb. 4 2016
• Tre Demps (23) and Bryant McIntosh (20) both had 20 or more points in the game. It is the third time this season that Northwestern has had multiple players score 20 or more points in a game. It also happened vs. UMass Lowell Nov. 13 and vs. Columbia Nov. 20.
• With an assist on a basket by Demps with 11:48 remaining, McIntosh became Northwestern's all-time leader for assists in a single season. He surpassed the previous mark of 157 set by Tim Doyle during the 2006-07 season. McIntosh currently has 159 assists this season.
• McIntosh upped his career assist total to 309, surpassing Craig Moore (308; 2006-09) for seventh place on Northwestern's career list.
• Demps raised his career point total to 1,371 and moved past Jim Burns (1,368; 1965-67) into 12th place all-time at Northwestern.
• Demps set a career high with 8 assists. It surpassed his previous high of 7 which he recorded on four occasions.
• Demps appeared in the 124^th game of his career, moving him alone into fifth place in school history.
• Northwestern set a high for a Big Ten game this season with 12 3-pointers. The Wildcats' previous high in conference play was 11 triples at Minnesota on Jan. 9. NU's season high is 15 3-pointers on two occasions.
• Minnesota's .333 field goal percentage (16-48) is a low for a Northwestern opponent in Big Ten play this season. It's the lowest field goal percentage by an NU league foe since Penn State shot .273 (15-55) on Feb. 21, 2015.