This was not the season that Northwestern basketball fans expected. It certainly wasn’t the campaign that any of them wanted. NU heads into Senior Night, tonight, as a lowly first-day-of-the-Big-Ten-Tournament team. This happens with regularity during the era of Chris Collins as Northwestern basketball coach, and that is absolutely not where you want to be, at all, as a program.
If you have to play on Wednesday night in the Big Ten Tourney, well it means your season is most likely a major washout. It’s not over yet, but Pete Nance, Ryan Greer and Elyjah Williams head into their Senior Day as a part of team that was widely expected to do a whole lot more than they actually did.
Entering the final weekend, 128 seeding scenarios remain for the @B1GMBBall tournament. pic.twitter.com/STGilpjS6D
— Kevin Pauga (@KevinPauga) March 4, 2022
Chris Collins Seat Temperature
I don’t have any inside information for you, sorry. What do I see and hear are the calls from the fanbase for him to go. It’s crystal clear and blatantly obvious- a lot of Northwestern basketball fans want regime change, and they want it now.
Given the length and lucrativeness of his contract though, I just don’t know if I see that really happening later this month. We were told that this is the season Northwestern basketball would turn it around. The rebuild was supposedly coming full circle.
Now a very talented core was seasoned and experienced, so the Ws would start coming. Well, so much for that, as Collins has shown ability and talent in recruiting, but hasn’t been able to actually produce much with that talent.
Northwestern Basketball Metrics and What Not
Let’s take a look at how the Wildcats could still salvage something from this season, although it is against all odds that they still can. First let’s take a look at the Northwestern basketball resume.
NET 83 KenPom 79
NIT Bracketology (yes, people actually make those) D Ratings N/A The Barking Crow N/A
Best Wins: Michigan St 43 Indiana 44
Worst Losses: Penn St x2 94 Minnesota 108
Gotta Sweep Gophers, and then Do Some More Work
Northwestern (13-15, 6-13) is locked in as the #12 seed in the Big Ten Tournament, one of just two seeds that are officially set before the regular season ends, with a Sunday slate of six games. Indiana at #9 is the other. NU gets the Minnesota Golden Gophers in a two game set, starting tonight at Welsh-Ryan Arena.
Minnesota could still fall into the #14, and thus play Maryland instead on Wed. evening, but that’s not gonna happen, as this scenario requires Nebraska beating Wisconsin today. Good luck with that. Getting back to the Northwestern basketball season resume, if they sweep the Gophers, they’ll get back to .500 overall at 15-15.
ESPN matchup predictor has them with a 76% to win tonight, but remember they got housed by the Gophers 77-60 when they went to the land with the purified waters of Lake Minnetonka.
After the Minny series, Northwestern would then need to beat the #5 seed Ohio State Buckeyes in the first real round of the Big Ten Tournament on Thursday. Then they would have to upset #4 seed Iowa in the quarterfinals on Friday. They just got absolutely rolled in the lone meeting with the Hawkeyes last weekend, and the only meeting with OSU didn’t go well for the Cats either.
In other words, this is a tall order, but Northwestern basketball has reached the BTT semifinals before, in 2017, so it’s not unprecedented. You would think 17-15 with a couple more signature wins at that point, and then you’re at least in the NIT bubble conversation.
Because right now, you are not. And the CBI is for small schools, not high majors, so just forget about that for now.
Bottom Line
Going beyond the field of 68 (NCAA Tournament), you would, at least in theory, be putting the next best 32 teams in the field of the NIT. So is this Northwestern basketball team one of the top 100 in the country? The metrics say that, and you could say the eye test passes muster too.
However, this isn’t how the brackets are built, and it’s not the way the cookie crumbles. Outside of 2016-17, the Collins era has produced zero postseason berths. It looks like that is about to happen yet again here.
And it really does make you wonder right now- what are they even really doing with this program in Evanston right now?
Paul M. Banks is the owner/manager of The Bank (TheSportsBank.Net) and author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” as well as “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
He has regularly appeared in WGN, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune, and co-hosts the After Extra Time podcast. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.