STATE COLLEGE— As Chris Collins and Patrick Chambers watched their players during Thursday’s shootaround, both coaches knew they’d soon be playing for a measure of respect each hoped his team would have already earned by this point of the season.

It would have to come at the other’s expense, as Northwestern and Penn State, hopeful this would be the year each could turn a corner in a rugged Big Ten Conference, entered the season’s penultimate game on familiar, ho-hum trajectories.

“We’re at similar junctures,” said Collins, whose Wildcats outlasted the Nittany Lions 71-61. “We’re in a heck of a league, battling to try to fight for our own program’s respect and notoriety in the league. Anytime we play against Penn State, I know it’s going to be an absolute war and you’re going to have to play incredibly hard to beat them. I thought we did that tonight.”

Tre Demps scored 23 points to lead Northwestern’s effort and Bryant McIntosh added 17 points to help the Wildcats (19-11, 7-10 Big Ten) to their second straight win and third in their last five.

Brandon Taylor scored 17 points for the Nittany Lions, who lost their second straight. Shep Garner added 13 points and Josh Reaves chipped in 11 for Penn State (15-15, 6-11), which is still one win shy of its best conference mark under Chambers.

Northwestern, ready for a stingy zone defense that slowed the Wildcats in a 71-62 loss in mid-January, started hot. The Wildcats shot 63 percent from the field, making 17 of 27 shots, with Demps scoring 19 points in the first half. Demps made his second field goal 6:41 into the game to give his team the lead for good.

Penn State went 0 for 5 over the final five minutes and McIntosh hit a jumper at the buzzer to give Northwestern a 42-27 halftime lead.

“I just felt like they played harder than us in the first half,” Chambers said. “In the second half, we responded. It was too big of a lead to overcome.”

Both teams struggled through early second-half shooting woes despite finishing with nine 3-pointers apiece. They combined to go 2 of 10 from the field over the first five minutes.

Demps missed his first six shots of the second half as Penn State put together a 21-11 run to pull within five with 8:35 to play.