Northwestern and Chris Collins are in the process of building up the men's basketball roster after eight players exited the program via the transfer portal this offseason. So far, they've added some talent, but it feels like the transfer class is missing a big fish.
Former Cornell star Jake Fiegen could have been that fish, but he's decided to go play for Kevin Willard at Villanova instead. Pete Nakos reported the news via a post to X yesterday.
Fiegen visited Evanston earlier this week, but there were always other teams in the mix. Reportedly, Virginia and Vanderbilt were also among his top four, but towards the end it felt like he was going to be a Wildcat, one way or another. Unfortunately for NU fans, he chose the other 'Cats.
Last year was by far Fiegen's best season in the Ivy League, finishing with a scoring average of 17.1 points per game. He also made his impact felt in other ways, averaging 5.1 rebounds from the guard spot and just over two assists per contest. Efficiency wise, Fiegen was 55% from the field and 41% from three.
At 6-foot-4, 205 lbs, Fiegen also seemed like a player who could be good in the Collins defensive system. One of the issues last season was that the guards who earned minutes in the rotation were all on the smaller side. Jayden Reid, in particular, simply wasn't big enough to guard some of the more physically dominant players at his position in the Big Ten.
Fiegen is a veteran in college basketball, and he has the size to compete in a power conference. He will get that opportunity, but it won't come in Evanston.
For Northwestern, losing out on Fiegen hurts. It's still added some players in guard LA Pratt and forwards Colin Smith, Luke McEldon and Jack Karasinski, but Fiegen was probably the top realistic prize floating around in the rumor mill.
The good news is -- Collins still has time, and he still has plenty of roster spots to fill before this year's portal closes for good. Getting Fiegen would have been nice, but there are limits to Collins' recruiting power right now, even if he has some NIL money to spend.
Northwestern was bad last year, and most of its roster is gone. Whether or not Collins wanted individual members of that team to return or leave doesn't really matter to incoming players. He's tasked with convincing them that, not only is he going to rebuild his roster, it's also going to be better than what he entered the offseason with.
That's a tall task with any recruit, but when a player has other programs like Villanova and UVA reaching out, it gets even tougher. The reality is, all of the other teams in Fiegen's top four were tournament teams last season. Northwestern was not, and that matters in transfer portal recruiting.
Now, Collins will turn his attention to other potential recruits. The rumor mill has dried up a little in the sense that most of the players tied to NU have either committed here or gone elsewhere. But expect the rumors and the news to pick back up because Collins physically can't be done.