In the End, Northwestern Fought Until the Final Buzzer

Northwestern's 2025-26 season could be defined by one word: almost.

The Wildcats held late leads against Virginia, Oklahoma State and Ohio State in December. The same collapses happened in January defeats to Minnesota and Rutgers. Northwestern even led No. 12 Michigan State by eight points, No. 2 Michigan by 16 points and No. 15 Purdue by 10 points — all in the second half — and still managed to drop all three contests.

Northwestern *almost* took down five teams that are likely headed to the NCAA Tournament and *almost* came away with a win over four others, if you include both losses to the Gophers. If the Wildcats had won even half of those games in which they led down the stretch, the season would've looked a lot different with an 18-13 or a 17-14 record, and they may have had a compelling case to sneak into a postseason tournament.

But they didn't, and they don't. Northwestern went 0-9 in the aforementioned games and ended the regular season at 13-18 (5-15 Big Ten). The Wildcats have been adamant that they're better than their record states — and most people who've watched NU this season would probably agree — but at a certain point, you are what your record says you are.

So, what can be taken away from a season that, by all measures, has been filled with disappointment?

There will be (and already have been) many think pieces written about the 2025-26 Wildcats and their direction moving forward. An all-time great scorer, Nick Martinelli, had his final season wasted by a team that was unable to surround him with consistent shooters. Chris Collins struggled to balance talent with experience in a rotation that fluctuated by the game. It doesn't take a fortune-teller to see the conclusions that fans and the media will come to.

Many negative things can be said about Northwestern this season, but one aspect that shouldn't be overlooked is how the team fought until the very end.

On Feb. 4, the Wildcats were leveled by then-No. 5 Illinois. Northwestern's 40-point loss on the road was a devastating gut punch for a team that had come up just short in several of its prior games.

The season essentially ended that night in Champaign. Northwestern dropped to 2-10 in Big Ten play after suffering its largest loss to its in-state rivals since 1995. Not a single Wildcat finished in double figures, and Martinelli — who eventually won his second consecutive Big Ten scoring title by averaging 23 points per game — was held to just four points.

Those are the moments that cause teams to collapse. Players start thinking about the transfer portal and doing what's best for themselves. Administrations are forced to look in the mirror and ask if the current coaching staff is on the right track to lead the program. Losses eventually snowball into a season that goes completely off the rails.

But that didn't happen at Northwestern. The 'Cats then narrowly fell to the Iowa Hawkeyes and ran out of gas in the following two games against No. 2 Michigan and No. 7 Nebraska, but the team did not throw in the towel on the season. Northwestern finally found its rhythm down the stretch, winning five of its final eight games.

Regardless of what you say about Collins and his Wildcats, you cannot say that his team quit.

Northwestern rallied from a 13-point deficit to beat Indiana, then nearly completed a 16-point comeback in the finale against Minnesota. The 'Cats scratched and clawed their way to Big Ten Tournament wins over Penn State and the Hoosiers as well, despite the season effectively being a lost cause.

Thursday's matchup with Purdue was another case of the Wildcats' resolve, even though it ended in a loss. Almost from the jump, the game was an onslaught. The Boilermakers went on a 12-4 run, a 15-2 run and a 7-2 run en route to a 45-21 lead at halftime.

Perhaps nothing was more emblematic than the sequence in which Purdue's Braden Smith jumped into a passing lane, leapt out of bounds to save the ball, and — while horizontal — tipped it ahead to Omer Mayer for a transition layup. The All-American point guard's highlight-reel play invoked flashbacks to the Illinois game, in which seemingly anything that could've gone wrong went wrong, and all but confirmed that the game would be Northwestern's last of the season.

But once again, there was no quit in the Wildcats.

With nothing left to play for except each other, the 'Cats fought to the very end. Martinelli, Jayden Reid and Jordan Clayton combined for 40 of Northwestern's 47 points in the second half, completely emptying the tank and leaving everything they had remaining out on the floor. The Wildcats ended up losing by 13 after trailing by as many as 26 points.

"Really proud of our team in the second half," Collins said after the game. "I challenged our guys, we were down big, I said, guys, we're not going to tap out. We're not throwing the white towel. That's not who we are as a program. That's not how you guys are as individuals, as competitors. Let's go out, let's try to win the first four minutes. Then let's try to win the next four minutes. Let's try and win the second half and see what happens. We actually did start to put a little game pressure on them. They had to call a couple of timeouts. So I was super proud of our fight the whole way, led by this guy [Martinelli]."

In the record books, this Northwestern team will go down as one of the more disappointing ones in the Chris Collins era. Unlike last season's group with injuries, or the 2017-18 team that was displaced to Rosemont due to Welsh-Ryan Arena renovations, there are no excuses for these Wildcats falling short of expectations, other than simply being unable to win close games.

And even though that's the bottom line and will most likely be what everyone remembers most about these 'Cats, it should not be lost on us that this Northwestern team battled until the final whistle blew.

That is what matters in the long-term vision for this program, and that is what will serve as a foundational value for future teams to come.