EVANSTON—John Shurna scored 22 points and Northwestern used aggressive defense to beat mistake-prone Stanford 70-62 Saturday, the Wildcats’ eight consecutive victory.Northwestern (9-1) matched its best start in 79 years. The winning streak is its longest since it went 9-0 to start the 1993-94 season. Northwestern had lost its previous four games to Stanford.Landry Fields had 24 points, nine rebounds and five assists for Stanford (5-5), which was forced into 18 turnovers and committed 28 fouls. Entering the game, the Cardinal had averaged only 11.3 turnovers, 17th best in the nation.

———————————————————

Robo Kreps had 25 points and nine rebounds Saturday to lead UIC to a 69-49 victory over Northern Illinois.Jeremy Buttell scored 16 and Zavion Neely 13 for the Flames (3-6).Michael Fakuade led the Huskies (1-7) with 11 points and nine boards.Northern Illinois got off quickly, leading 11-4. But Neely’s basket, part of a 10-0 Flames run, tied it 11-11 with 14:27 left in the first half, and UIC never trailed after that.K.C. Robbins scored with 3:29 left to give the Flames their largest lead of the first half at 34-18. They led 36-27 at intermission and steadily pulled away.The Flames outshot the Huskies 42.9 percent to 32.5 and committed only seven turnovers.UIC beat NIU for the third straight time and the ninth time in a row in Chicago.Northern lost for the 40th time in its last 45 road games.

———————————————————-

ROSEMONT—Will Walker scored 20 of his 23 points in the second half Saturday to lead DePaul to a 86-69 win over Texas State.Devin Hill and Mike Stovall had 19 points each, and Stovall also had nine rebounds and six assists for DePaul (7-4). The Blue Demons rebounded from a home loss to American on Wednesday.Trailing 32-21 with 4:39 left in the first half, DePaul was able to regain the lead by closing the half with a 13-0 run to go ahead 34-32. Hill made a pair of 3-pointers during the span and Stovall had a basket with 32 seconds left.Dylan Hale led Texas State (3-8) with 22 points and John Rybak had 21 points.The Blue Demons stretched their lead in the second half. Stovall had a putback to put them up 42-36, Jeremiah Kelly had a three-point play and freshman walk-on Nate Rogers made a pair of free throws to extend the Blue Demons lead to 51-38 with 13:04 left.In the first half, Texas State trailed 14-11 but scored the game’s next 13 points. Rybak’s 3-pointer capped the run that gave the Bobcats a 24-14 lead.Stovall scored 12 in the first half and Hill had 10. Rybak made three of his four 3-point attempts in the half; for the game, he was 5-for-10 from behind the arc. Hale was 5-for-9 in the contest.

———————————————————-

SOUTH BEND—Luke Harangody scored 23 points, four other Notre Dame players scored in double figures and the Fighting Irish shot 60 percent in the second half en route to an 84-73 victory over UCLA on Saturday.Harangody missed his first four shots, then went 9-of-15 from the floor the rest of the way.Tim Abromaitis and Ben Hansbrough hit back-to-back 3-pointers early in the second half to spark an 11-3 spurt by the Irish, who went ahead 53-42 on a jumper by Tyrone Nash. The Irish (10-2) later extended the lead to 76-63 when Harangody scored on a fastbreak basket with 2:55 left.Michael Roll hit a jumper and Malcolm Lee hit a 3-pointer and a layup as the Bruins (3-7) went on a 7-0 run to cut the lead to 76-70 with 65 seconds left. But Harangody scored on a fastbreak dunk and a pair of free throws to quickly restore the lead to 10 points.