Northwestern basketball suffered a heart-breaking home loss on Saturday, 75-69 to #17 Wisconsin. Sadly, it was a big missed opportunity for NU, who held an 8 point lead midway through the second half.
This L was overshadowed by another loss- Brooks Barnhizer, who is done for the season (and with that, his entire college career), due to a broken foot.
Northwestern basketball coach Chris Collins got very emotional when he announced that Brooks Barnhizer will never suit up again, and that’s very understandable, given the closeness of their relationship.
We covered the loss of Barnhizer in more detail at this link, yesterday. He is the team’s second leading scorer, and second best player behind Nick Martinelli, who now assumes even more of a leadership role.
Unfortunately, this team is in a tailspin right now, having lost their last three, four of the last five and seven of the last nine.
When you look at where the football program is right now (in flux, at a temporary home stadium, as pointed out by RG), and this is a down year for Northwestern revenue sports.
“I just felt like the fight wasn’t there,” Martinelli said after the home loss to Rutgers on Wednesday night.
“They came ready to go with the fight, I felt like we were ready to go…but as the game went on, and they started to take the lead, we lost the fight, and kind of just gave in.”
Collins explained his disappointment with that effort and performance as well.
“I just didn’t love our energy and fight and defensive intensity,” he said. “I just expected, especially in that first half, a little bit of a different energy and grit.”
“Really disappointing night for us. We’ve just got to figure things out.
“You get to February, and you’re dealing with guys that are trying to be healthy…and then you get slippage. It’s just a tough dynamic, trying to stay sharp.”
Ok, so where does Northwestern basketball go from here? How can they salvage their season? We covered the metrics on their season resume at this link.
Let’s take a look at the big picture goals that are still achievable for Northwestern basketball, and how they can get there.
Get in the Conference Dance
The Big Ten took a page from European football/soccer, in a way, sort of kind of. If you are in the bottom three in the league standings, you are not getting into the conference tournament (instead of getting relegated to the lower division). That is a new rule as the conference expanded to 18 teams.
Northwestern are unfortunately in that zone right now, so they have a lot of work to do in order to make sure they get up and out of there; and stay there. And of course, if they get in the conference tourney and win it, they get an automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament.
The way things stand, it’s their only path to March Madness (Unless they win eight or more of their last nine).
Take the Crown
The latest bracket projection of Big Ten teams, by the FOX Sports bracketologist, had this Northwestern basketball team and the Indiana Hoosiers as Crown Invitees.
Of course FOX is the only bracketology that has any projections for the Crown Basketball Tournament because…wait for it….the Crown is owned/managed by FOX Sports and AEG Global Partnerships.
So you can expect FOX to care a lot more about the Crown than anyone else will. Basically, the Crown will take teams that don’t make the big dance, nor the NIT.
According to the latest format explanation, the Big Ten, Big East and Big 12 (FOX partner conferences obviously) all get two automatic berths into The Crown, which will take place on the Las Vegas strip at MGM Grand Garden Arena and T Mobile Arena.
Don’t be surprised if The Crown quickly overtakes the CBI, CIT and maybe even one day down the road, the NIT, on relevance.
We’ve seen the Las Vegas Bowl move up the bowl game pecking order, and we wouldn’t be surprised if it keeps on ascending. Once sports gambling was legalized, the industry took over the presentation of game broadcasts.
And with that Vegas became a much more important city in the sporting landscape.
Paul M. Banks is the Founding Editor of The Sports Bank. He’s also the author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” and “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
He currently contributes to USA Today’s NFL Wires Network, the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America and RG. His past bylines include the New York Daily News, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune. His work has been featured in numerous outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the Washington Post and ESPN. You can follow him on Linked In and Twitter.