'Cats Face Penn State in Big Ten Tournament Opener Thursday

2/28/2018 4:04:00 PM | Men's Basketball

By: Nick Brilowski

NORTHWESTERN BASKETBALL: GAME DAY INFORMATION
DATE	OPPONENT	TIME	LOCATION	BROADCAST	LIVE STATS
Thu., March 1	Penn State	5:30 p.m. CT	Madison Square Garden; New York, N.Y.	BTN and BTN2Go	GameTracker
Radio: 720 WGN (Dave Eanet and Joey Meyer) TV: BTN (Kevin Kugler, Shon Morris and Rick Pizzo) Social: Twitter (@NUMensBball and @NU_SportsLIVE) \| Instagram (@numensbball) \| Facebook Game Notes: Northwestern \| Penn State Big Ten Tournament Central

EVANSTON, Ill. — Tenth-seeded Northwestern and seventh-seeded Penn State match up Thursday in the Big Ten tournament opener for both teams Thursday at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Tip time is set for 5:30 p.m. Central time.

The winner of Thursday's contest advances to the quarterfinal round where it will square off against second-seeded Ohio State.

The Wildcats and Nittany Lions have met three previous times in the Big Ten tournament, but not since 2006. Northwestern has won two of the three meetings. The better seed has won all three matchups. NU set a Big Ten tournament record with 22 steals, including an individual record 8 by Jitim Young, in a 57-52 win March 11, 2004.

Northwestern reached the semifinal round of the Big Ten tournament for the first time a year ago, defeating Rutgers, 83-61, in the second round before upsetting Maryland, 72-64, in the quarterfinals.

NU is playing at Madison Square Garden for the first time since the 2010-11 season when it participated in the MSG Holiday Festival. The Wildcats defeated St. Francis (N.Y.), 92-61, before falling to St. John's, 85-69. Northwestern did play in New York a year ago, participating in the Legends Classic at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The 'Cats defeated 22nd-ranked Texas, 77-58, before falling to Notre Dame, 70-66, in the championship game.

Northwestern and Penn State split their two regular-season meetings. The Nittany Lions won 78-63 Jan. 5 in University Park before the Wildcats posted a 70-61 victory Jan. 20 in Rosemont. NU held PSU without a field goal over the final 10:37 in winning the rematch. Vic Law paced Northwestern with 18 points.

Senior guard Bryant McIntosh and junior center Dererk Pardon both earned postseason recognition earlier this week when they were named honorable mention All-Big Ten as selected by the league's media members. McIntosh was an honorable mention pick as a sophomore before earning second-team accolades a year ago as a junior. This is the first All-Big Ten honor for Pardon.

Senior guard Scottie Lindsey enters the Big Ten tournament on a hot streak. In Northwestern's last two games, Lindsey tallied 26 points vs. Wisconsin last Thursday before scoring a career-best 32 points at Iowa on Sunday. He went 9-of-11 from 3-point range vs. the Hawkeyes with the nine triples tying Craig Moore and John Shurna for the Northwestern single-game record. The nine makes rank as a tie for the third most ever in a Big Ten game trailing only the 11 made by Michigan State's Bryn Forbes vs. Rutgers and 10 by Ohio State's Jon Diebler vs. Penn State. The total also tied a Carver-Hawkeye Arena record.

Scouting Penn State
The Nittany Lions (19-12, 9-9 B1G) tied Indiana for sixth place during the regular season but have dropped their last three contests, most recently falling 76-64 at Nebraska on Sunday. Tony Carr led Penn State with 27 points. A first-team All-Big Ten selection, Carr leads the Big Ten with an average of 19.9 points per game while ranking third with a .458 3-point field goal percentage and fifth with an average of 4.8 assists per game. Josh Reaves ranks first in the Big Ten with an average of 2.4 steals per contest and Shep Garner is tops with 2.8 3-point field goals per game.