Let’s not sugarcoat it, the 2025-26 basketball season wasn’t the best for Northwestern. A 5-15 record in conference that had two separate five-plus game losing runs, multiple blown second-half leads, and a bow out of the Big Ten Tournament in uncompetitive fashion. It’s a far cry from the back-to-back March Madness dances the Wildcats saw in seasons prior.
A season like that realistically tempers expectations for the next campaign, and that’s not even considering a top 10 scorer in program history
graduating. There are many justifiable questions that ‘Cats’ fans have coming into the 2026-27 season.
Where will the (Nicky) buckets come from?
The two most prolific scoring seasons in program history. The highest-scoring Big Ten Tournament performance by a Northwestern player. The most 20+ point games by an active B1G player, the most 25+ point games in the conference this season. Three game-winners in the last two years, and a really nice bobble head to boot.
Replacing Nick Martinelli’s scoring output will be, in complex basketball terminology, very hard.
The situation looks even more bleak when you look at the only game the team played without Martinelli this season. In a loss to Butler, Jayden Reid’s 14 points led the way as the team only mustered 58 points, its lowest scoring output in a non-conference game since a 66-57 loss to Mississippi State in 2024.
Not only will Martinelli’s pure production be sorely missed, but also the impact of his gravity. In the halfcourt, defenses would often send double teams on Martinelli’s post-ups to stop his isolation scoring. Players like Ciaravino thrived off timely cuts to the basket and attacking closeouts on Martinelli kickouts.
Next season, no one on the scouting report will garner the same attention. It would be really simple to say Martinelli’s scoring will simply be recouped in the aggregate, but that won’t be the case without significant changes to NU’s half-court offense.
Should Reid remain on the roster, running the offense through a combination of him and Jake West might be Collins’ best solution. Reid was fifth in the conference in assists per game and was a proficient pick-and-roll technician all season long. The home game against Illinois immediately jumps out as evidence that he can score against high-level competition, and his final game of the season against Purdue left a good lasting impression.
Additionally, Collins will definitely be active in the transfer portal once it opens in April, but even efficient 15+ PPG players are a dime a dozen, never mind a 20PPG guy.
It’s a tall, tall task.
Was the end of the season real?
Attend any post-game press conference with Collins and one thing will be made abundantly clear: Collins believes in the basketball Gods.
So if you ask him about the ’Cats ripping off three straight conference wins down the latter half of the season, with the average margin of victory being three points, he might attribute it to karmic retribution.
But it might have actually been a sign of the ’Cats turning a corner. Admittedly, a lot of the credit does belong to Martinelli’s late-game heroics, which will obviously be unreplicable next year.
A couple of Jordan Clayton magnet-ball games boosted the team’s overall three-point shooting percentages during the stretch, but the main standout in the run was the defense. Indiana was held below 30 points in the second half in both matchups. The score in the Penn State Big Ten Tournament game was 60-55 NU with 8:06 to go; the Nitanny Lions’ next basket didn’t come until the 3:30 mark. Maryland and Oregon were both held to low-scoring, inefficient second halves in Welsh-Ryan Arena.
Defense has always been part of the culture for Collins-led teams. This year, the ’Cats ranked 77th in the nation in Defensive Rating according to KenPom stats. In the last decade, NU has floated in the 30-50 range, with finishes as high as 19th in 2019 and 22nd in 2023.
Of course, there will be a different group of guys in the locker room next season, and it’s impossible to tell if this run of defensive performances can be carried into next season. But on the surface, this past season looks more like an outlier and the recent defensive run could be NU returning to its roots under Collins.
Or maybe it was just the basketball gods after all.
Will the young stars develop?
In the 2019-20 season, first-years combined to record 60 starts, the most in a season this decade. 31 of those were by Ryan Young, who was a redshirt. Robbie Beran had 18, and the remaining 11 came from some first-year named Boo Buie.
This year NU’s first years started 58 games with none coming from redshirted players, and the results on the court have been evident.
West grew both as a floor general and a scorer this season, becoming one of just five first-years since 2005 to record 90+ assists in a season. Both his games against Indiana showed his leaps as a scorer. In the regular season, he showed his improvement in shooting from beyond the arc, hitting multiple big threes. In the tournament, he was able to get downhill and attack the basket seemingly at will.
Singleton’s season certainly had highs and lows, but an efficient 7.6 points each night to go along with a physical 4.8 rebounds and high intensity every time he touched the floor is undoubtedly a good start to his NU tenure. His quality performances against Michigan, UCLA, Nebraska, and, of course, his career-best performance against Penn State, showed the promise of the (former) highest-ranked recruit in school history.
These two have been battle-tested against some of the best teams that the country has to offer. Now the hope is that next season, with a full year of B1G experience under their belt, there are fewer instances like Singleton’s late-game turnover against Purdue and more instances like his offensive rebound against Oregon that led to Martinelli’s winner.
Progression in sports is far from linear. Last season, I’m sure we all thought Justin Mullins would be a focal point of this team all throughout this past season, but that hasn’t turned out to be the case.
Collins put an extreme amount of faith in West and Singleton this season, and so far, the returns have been good. It’s up to those two to keep on delivering in the seasons to come.
