For Northwestern, this might be season
Chris Collins came to Northwestern with the same mission as every men’s basketball coach before him: Get the Wildcats to the NCAA tournament.
No coach has achieved that goal, but no Northwestern coach before Collins has had a team this well-positioned with a little more than a week left until February.
Northwestern is 16-4 and tied for third in the Big Ten standings at 5-2. The Wildcats’ four losses came to teams ranked inside the Ratings Percentage Index’s top 50. Two losses came on the road (Butler, Michigan State), and one was played on a neutral floor (Notre Dame).
Every prominent bracketologist has Northwestern in the field in mock brackets dated Jan. 22 as a No. 7, 8 or 9 seed.
There’s a lot to like about this team and the way its best players have stepped up in big moments this season, such as Scottie Lindsey in Sunday’s win at Ohio State, the Wildcats’ first victory in Columbus since 1977.
There’s a lot to like about this team’s résumé to date, too. But there are a lot of games left in a somewhat unusual season for the Big Ten. It’s a strange year when Michigan State is ranked behind Northwestern in Ken Pomeroy’s ratings and in RPI and when Indiana’s ratings are comparable to the Wildcats’.
No Big Ten teams are in the RPI’s top 10, and one of the two in the top 25 has played and beaten Northwestern. What does this mean? Essentially that there are few opportunities left for marquee wins on the Wildcats schedule — and plenty of mediocre Big Ten teams that could damage their tournament résumé.
Still, it’s time to write a familiar sentence that brims with hope: This could be the year Northwestern makes the NCAA tournament for the first time.
The Wildcats are the only long- standing member of a power conference to never make the tournament. They haven’t posted a winning record in conference play since 1968 — another streak that likely will need to be broken to get a ticket to the big dance. No pressure. “It’s the elephant in the room,” Collins told USA TODAY Sports before the season. “It’s going to be a national story. It’s the Cubs winning the World Series. We don’t run from it, but we also don’t talk much about it.
“(The Cubs) played with a free spirit. They didn’t look like they were feeling the pressure of 100 years. I want our guys to play free.”
That’s easier said than done. The weight of Northwestern’s beleaguered history will only get heavier as March approaches.
But if anyone is willing to carry it, it’s this Northwestern team and this Northwestern coach.