No. 2 is a semifinalist among college basketball's elite.
Northwestern's 2025-26 season hasn't gone to plan, but that doesn't take anything away from the stellar year that Nick Martinelli is having.
The senior forward is tied for the national lead in scoring, averaging a career-high 23.8 points and 6.6 rebounds per game. Martinelli has taken his game to another level since winning the Big Ten scoring title last season, even if his team's success hasn't reflected it.
On Friday afternoon, No. 2 was named to the Oscar Robertson Trophy Midseason Watch List. The award is given by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association to the best player in college basketball.
Martinelli is one of 25 players to make the star-studded list, which features some of the most electric players across the country. Top projected NBA Draft picks AJ Dybantsa (BYU), Cameron Boozer (Duke) and Darryn Peterson (Kansas) highlight the group, as well as several of Martinelli's conference foes.
Seven athletes from the Big Ten cracked the watch list, including Jeremy Fears Jr. (Michigan State), Trey Kaufman-Renn (Purdue), Yaxel Lendeborg (Michigan), Braden Smith (Purdue), Bennett Stirtz (Iowa) and Bruce Thornton (Ohio State).
The USBWA will name finalists for the award upon the end of the regular season and announce the winner at the 2026 Final Four.
Named after the star point guard and original NBA triple-double king, the Oscar Robertson Trophy is the longest-running Player of the Year award in college basketball. Robertson won the first two iterations of the trophy in 1959 and 1960, and it was renamed in his honor in 1998.
No Northwestern player has ever won the award. The Big Ten has had a representative win in three of the last five seasons — Iowa's Luka Garza took home the award in 2021 before Purdue's Zach Edey went back-to-back in 2023 and 2024.
Martinelli currently ranks 15th in Northwestern history with 1,409 career points, thanks to his record-breaking 2024-25 season. As a junior, Martinelli set program records for points and made shots in a single season, and he's on pace to break both of those marks again. In addition to raising his scoring average from 20.5 points per game, the 6-foot-7 forward is also shooting a career-best 57.3% from the floor, 52.4% from three and 79.8% from the free-throw line.
Although the Wildcats are just 8-9 overall and 0-6 in Big Ten play, Martinelli is hardly to blame for the team's shortcomings. There are still 14 games remaining in the regular season, but Martinelli will need a lot of help from his teammates in order to turn the 'Cats' trajectory around.