This season, Northwestern men\u2019s basketball coach Chris Collins has shown a willingness to tinker with lineups, trotting out three first-years and a sophomore in the starting group for the past four games.<\/p>\n
The upside of those decisions is that the Wildcats can give their young players valuable experience for the future. The downside? A performance like Saturday night.<\/p>\n
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NU\u2019s 76-62 loss to Washington is a tough one to swallow, especially when considering that the Huskies\u2019 lead ballooned to 21 at one point on the Wildcats\u2019 home floor. With a 2-9 conference record, Collins and Co. know it\u2019s time to look toward the future.<\/p>\n
Still, that mindset can certainly lead to major sacrifices in the present. First-years Jake West and Tyler Kropp along with sophomore Max Green combined for 52 minutes on the floor against Washington, but they ended up with a combined zero points. On a night where Nick Martinelli was limited to 19 points the rest of the starters (outside of Tre Singleton) simply couldn\u2019t get it done.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope we\u2019re not that shallow mentally that having a night like tonight is just going to totally derail us,\u201d Collins said. \u201cI\u2019m not going to let it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unfortunately for the \u2018Cats, it may be too late to right the ship for the remainder of the year. Northwestern simply looked lost on Saturday, and it\u2019s fair to wonder whether the players will continue to buy in during such a difficult stretch.<\/p>\n
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To be fair to the \u2018Cats, they were clearly banged up from playing two games in about 48 hours, and Martinelli and Collins both acknowledged that the quick turnaround was a factor. But in the Big Ten, adversity is what you sign up for. In a game where the \u2018Cats had to find ways to respond, they simply couldn\u2019t do it.<\/p>\n
Now, with his starting lineups going forward, Collins faces an even-bigger conundrum. It\u2019s far too early to give up on players like West, Kropp and Green, who have each showed flashes in the right situation. At the same time \u2014 although this hasn\u2019t always been the case \u2014 the \u2018Cats were better with their true freshmen off the floor Saturday, and with Arrinten Page and Jayden Reid on it.<\/p>\n
Page and Reid have had their struggles \u2014 especially defensively \u2014 but last night, they were crucial for keeping the Huskies at least somewhat close. Reid knocked down three triples and put up 11 points and five assists, and Page racked up 16 points and eight boards a couple of days after playing just three minutes against Penn State.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was playing really well,\u201d Collins said regarding Page. \u201cI saw energy. I saw competitiveness. I saw a bounce in his step.\u201d<\/p>\n
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As always, things weren\u2019t perfect with Page, and some continued struggles with both defending and executing screens demonstrated that. Having fresher legs than most of the Wildcat roster could also have been a major factor for his success. But regardless, the fact remains that Page elevated his game in a big way on Saturday, and the \u2018Cats needed his presence for every bit of his 26 minutes off the bench.<\/p>\n
The same goes for Reid, who can struggle against bigger guards but is more of a true combo guard than West. West\u2019s passing ability has taken major strides, but he simply doesn\u2019t make a big enough impact as a scorer right now. Reid is someone who can fill it up when needed.<\/p>\n
All of this comes back to the perpetual problem Collins has faced all season long with lineups. The Wildcat head coach has no shortage of young talent, but the issue is that almost every player on the roster has both great strengths and glaring weaknesses. Because of the lack of balance, teams can exploit what they see on film no matter who\u2019s out on the floor.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to blame Collins for sticking with his young guys even amid their struggles. The Wildcats will have to find a way to avoid a transfer portal exodus following this season, but it\u2019s not like there\u2019s no hope for the future, and the outlook will be brighter if the first-years and sophomores can get valuable minutes now.<\/p>\n
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The losing struggles of today are likely to continue through March. But if successful development can take place in the meantime, there should be enough talent remaining to compete in the looming post-Martinelli era.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This season, Northwestern men\u2019s basketball coach Chris Collins has shown a willingness to tinker with lineups, trotting out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":576214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,37472,217,30815,61118,63947,61117,231,772,1544,15660,13058,13650,72655],"class_list":["post-576213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-basketball","tag-basketball","tag-chris-collins","tag-college-basketball","tag-david-banks-imagn","tag-jake-west","tag-jayden-reid","tag-max-green","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-ncaab","tag-nick-martinelli","tag-northwestern-wildcats","tag-washington-huskies","tag-zoom-diallo"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115998390032884991","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/576214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}