Scottie Lindsey was hot early and often in Tuesday's game in State College, Pa., a theme that continued overall for the Northwestern Wildcats.

The Northwestern guard was so dialed-in, in fact, that his 31-point performance in an 87-77 win over Penn State in both teams' Big Ten opener drew rave reviews from Wildcat coach Chris Collins, who called it the best game of Lindsey's career.

Lindsey sank 9 of 14 field-goal attempts, including 5 of 8 3-pointers, to lead the visiting Wildcats (12-2) to their ninth straight win. Three of those 3s came in the second half when Northwestern led by 20 or more for most of the final 20 minutes.

Josh Reaves scored 22 points for Penn State (8-6, 0-1) while Tony Carr and Lamar Stevens added 15 and 12, respectively.

Back-to-back 3-pointers from Isiah Brown and Nathan Taphorn from the same spot near the corner with less than a minute left helped put the Wildcats up 51-32 at halftime in a game they never trailed. Vic Law added 12 points and grabbed 12 rebounds for the Wildcats, who watched their comfortable margin shrink as the game wore into the waning moments.

A tip-in rom Terrence Samuel pulled the Nittany Lions within 13 early in the second half before Northwestern jumped back out to a 24-point lead with 5:29 left.

Then, Reaves picked up the scoring pace for Penn State. He scored nine points on a 20-7 run over the final 5:16, cutting Northwestern's lead to 84-74 on a dunk with 40 seconds left. Shep Garner pulled Penn State within nine with a layup and free throw with 18 seconds remaining before Sanjay Lumpkin hit an insurance free throw to cap the scoring.