What's Next for Northwestern? Chris Collins Knows What He Wants:

As NIL, revenue share and an avalanche of legal battles involving the NCAA take the nation by storm, it's more important than ever for universities to adapt to the rapidly changing landscape of college sports.

Northwestern head coach Chris Collins said he felt his basketball program was "positioned" to enter that next era shortly after the Wildcats' season ended in Indianapolis last year. Twelve months later, Collins is singing a different tune.

The 2024-25 Wildcats failed to reach the postseason for the first time since 2022, but those shortcomings were largely the unfortunate result of a slew of injuries. Athletic director Mark Jackson was still in his first year in Evanston, while Collins agreed to a contract extension with the program shortly after. Even though Northwestern's season did not go to plan, the Wildcats still finished with a winning record at 17-16 overall.

Collins' postseason press conference at the Big Ten Tournament sounded quite different on Thursday. Five wins in their final eight games were not enough for the 'Cats (15-19, 5-15 Big Ten) to salvage their season, and Northwestern now enters a critical juncture over the coming months.

The Wildcats' head coach seemed to make a plea to the administration, emphasizing that his program needed more resources in order to contend with the heavy hitters of the Big Ten.

"I'm really anxious to be able to get with administration and get with my staff," Collins said. "We've got to be better in what you mentioned [shooting, team-building], and that's not a knock on players. We didn't have enough. We weren't equipped with what we needed going through the grind of the Big Ten this year. Again, I'm talking about myself. I've got to be better. We've got to do a better job with roster construction, making sure we get the right kind of guys that are going to be good players here."

Throughout the season, Collins frequently remarked that he was surprised by how poorly the team was shooting the basketball, given how well that aspect of the Wildcats seemed to mesh in summer and early fall practices. Northwestern spent most of the season as the worst team in the Big Ten at three-point percentage (31.1% through 26 games) before heating up down the stretch and finishing 12th (39.9% over the last 8 games).

The departures of the graduating Brooks Barnhizer, Ty Berry, Matthew Nicholson, Jalen Leach and Keegan Fitzmorris (plus outgoing transfers Luke Hunger and Blake Barkley) left the Wildcats turning over nearly half of their roster last offseason. A top-30 recruiting class contributed five new freshmen who joined the fray, while Collins also used the portal to sign junior guard Jayden Reid from South Florida, junior center Arrinten Page from Cincinnati and sophomore guard Max Green from Holy Cross.

Northwestern should have been able to build a competitive team around Nick Martinelli during his final season in Evanston, but basketball games aren't won on paper. Clearly, Collins' comments imply that he did not feel he was given enough resources to sign the players he wanted. The success he sees from other programs at the Big Ten level makes that abundantly clear to him.

What Collins sees as the key to all of this is alignment, from the top down. A full year of dialogue between Jackson and Collins is certain to ensure better connectivity this time around, but Northwestern University is an important component as well. The school still does not have a president, following Michael Schill's resignation in September, and the next person to hold that position will undoubtedly be paramount to whether NU can keep up in the college sports arms race.

"It's got to trickle down to the administration and coaching, and everybody's got to be in alignment in order to win," Collins said. "The programs that are winning, that's what they're doing. They're aligned. There's a commitment to winning with resources, with investment. There's no reason that we can't be one of those places in my mind. I'm fully convinced. But it's going to take everybody together to want to do that."

Collins claimed that Northwestern's next president would be a "huge hire," saying that the school's academic and professional success should also push the university to strive for athletic excellence. The Wildcats' head coach is a 1996 graduate of Duke University, which is currently the No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament in men's basketball and is tied with NU as the No. 7 school in U.S. News' Best Universities ranking.

The 2025-26 season was Collins' 13th as the head coach at Northwestern. In that time, he has compiled a perfectly average 209-209 record, though his 76-59 record since 2022 marks the winningest four-year stretch in program history. The 'Cats may be coming off a poor campaign, but Collins has rebuilt a roster before and is committed to doing it again.

Despite that plea for resources, Northwestern's lack of alignment that other schools have, the academic challenges that come with recruiting talent to Evanston and the fact that the Wildcats are one of the smallest high-major brands in the country, Collins is adamant that he is still excited about the future. There's a reason the Northbrook, Illinois, native didn't leave for Villanova when he had the opportunity last offseason — Collins wants to win at Northwestern.

So far, he's done that. The 51-year-old is just 28 wins away from surpassing Arthur "Dutch" Lonborg (1927-1950) for the most wins in program history and is responsible for all three of Northwestern's NCAA Tournament berths. Collins has proven that it is possible to win at a school like Northwestern, but that doesn't mean he's content to trot out .500-caliber teams until he ends up with the wins record by virtue of being just good enough not to get fired.

No, Collins has his eye on something bigger. The Wildcats placed second in the conference in 2022-23 and third in 2023-24, and the man who is driven by achieving what most thought was unachievable at Northwestern wants nothing more than to earn the program's first Big Ten Championship in nearly a century.

"I want to win. I'm a competitor, you guys know that. I want to win the right way. I want to win with good people. I want to compete in this league... I take accountability for what the record was this year. I'm excited to roll up my sleeves and figure out how we can get back to the upper echelon of the league. I can't wait to get started this spring with that."