GAME NOTES: The Indiana Hoosiers seek their 20th win of the campaign as they tangle with the Northwestern Wildcats in Big Ten Conference play at Welsh-Ryan Arena on Wednesday night.

The Hoosiers, who are on the road for the last time in the regular season, are also shooting for their 10th conference win of the season with this and two more games remaining before the start of the league tournament. Indiana is coming off a lopsided 84-54 win at Rutgers on Sunday, the margin of victory being the largest in a conference road game since dumping Purdue by a 97-60 score a few seasons back.

After losing 10 straight, the Wildcats have come alive in recent weeks with three consecutive victories. The most recent triumph was a 60-39 pounding of Penn State on Saturday at home, moving Northwestern to 4-10 in conference.

Indiana owns a commanding 112-49 edge in the all-time series, winning the most recent meeting last season around this time by a score of 61-56.

James Blackmon Jr. and Kevin Ferrell both tallied 17 points as the Hoosiers made fast work of the Rutgers Scarlet Knights at the RAC over the weekend. Also scoring in double figures for Indiana were Hanner Mosquera-Perea and Nick Zeisloft with 13 points apiece as the program continued the trend of alternating wins and losses for the eighth straight game. Indiana, which led by as many as 31 in the contest, won the rebounding battle by a 45-32 margin.

A candidate for the Jerry West Award, Blackmon Jr. has made a huge impact for the Hoosiers in his first year, averaging 16.1 ppg on an impressive 40.3 percent accuracy behind the 3-point line. He is also a solid rebounder with 5.3 boards per contest, playing particularly strong at the defensive end of the floor in that department. Ferrell, who averaged 17.3 ppg a season ago, is posting 16.2 ppg this time around and needs just seven assists down the stretch to establish a new career season high for dishes.

From a defensive standpoint, the Wildcats had their best conference performance in a decade as they held the Nittany Lions to just 27.3 percent shooting from the floor and watched the visitors make only 1-of-8 at the free- throw line. Vic Law carried Northwestern with 17 points, to go along with 11 rebounds, while Tre Demps and Alex Olah chipped in 16 and 10 points, respectively, as the squad experienced a 30-point swing after falling behind by nine early in the contest.

The Northwestern offense has been tested time and time again by the rest of the Big Ten and for the most part those other teams have come out on top by limiting the Wildcats to just 60.9 ppg. Demps, one of three players to have started all 14 league bouts, has done what he can to level the playing field with 13.1 ppg, converting close to 40 percent of his long-distance tries, while Bryant McIntosh and Olah check in with 12.8 and 10.9 ppg, respectively, with McIntosh also handing out 57 assists to help drive the unit.

With still some movement to be made near the top of the standings, Indiana could certainly use another win at this point in order to put more pressure on the so-called elite teams in the conference.