Three takeaways after Northwestern drops fifth-straight game against No. 7 Nebraska
· Yahoo Sports
New game, new arena, same story. The ‘Cats’ 68-49 loss to No. 7 Nebraska mimicked their 87-75 loss to Michigan earlier in the week. Northwestern was competitive through three-fourths of the game, leading at points in the second half, before fading in the game’s final minutes as its opponent turned up its defensive intensity a notch. It was another hard watch for ‘Cats fans.
Here are three takeaways from a crushing defeat in Lincoln:
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Northwestern can’t play high-level team basketball like Nebraska
The talent gap between Northwestern and Nebraska is not all that different. Like Northwestern, Nebraska has no five-star talents on its roster and, over the past three seasons, Northwestern has had a better 247Sports composite rank (a talent evaluation metric that combines a team’s recruiting and transfer portal acquisitions) than the Cornhuskers twice.
Yet, up against Fred Hoiberg’s squad twice this season, Northwestern has been completely outclassed. This year, Nebraska may play the best brand of “team basketball” in the country, while Northwestern head coach Chris Collins has struggled all year to find a lineup that consistently works for the ‘Cats.
On Saturday, Nebraska turned that team basketball into open looks on offense and sharp rotational defense on the other end. Northwestern struggled to do the same.
Watch this Nebraska possession:
Great team basketball from Nebraska. They're patient as the ball swings around the perimeter, until Sam Hoiberg is finally able to attack the basket and find an open Pryce Sandfort after the defense collapses. pic.twitter.com/pEN8eskoeG
— Adam Sutro (@sutro_sports) February 15, 2026
Nebraska swings the ball around the perimeter, patiently waiting for a scoring opportunity. Finally, Sam Hoiberg is able to attack the basket, getting around Nick Martinelli. The entire time, Hoiberg knows exactly where his shooter, Pryce Sandfort, is on the floor. Once the defense collapses, Hoiberg finds an open Sandfort who knocks down the triple. Team basketball at its finest.
Now, watch this clip of Northwestern:
Northwestern's offense went stagnant against Nebraska, scoring just 49 points, its lowest mark all season. As they have all year long, Nebraska rotated extremely well defensively, making it difficult for the 'Cats to get any sort of action going in the paint. pic.twitter.com/jUbZyG6SsG
— Adam Sutro (@sutro_sports) February 15, 2026
The ball swings around the perimeter, but no Wildcat is able to penetrate inside of the arc. Nebraska rotates extremely well defensively, with help defenders doing their job to halt Tyler Kropp and Tre Singleton’s drives towards the basket. Late in the shot clock, Nebraska swarms Martinelli in the paint, forcing him to nearly run out-of-bounds and make a bad turnover pass.
Obviously, these are two cherry-picked sequences, but if you watch back yesterday’s game, a lot of both teams’ possessions are similar to the examples above.
Nebraska’s season is evidence of the fact that success is still possible in college basketball without an overwhelmingly talented roster. Unfortunately, this year, Northwestern does not have the same team chemistry as Hoiberg’s bunch.
This is Northwestern’s worst three-point shooting team since 2013
In 2013, Chris Collins took over a rudderless Northwestern basketball program. Despite competing in Division I college basketball since March Madness’ inception in 1939, the ‘Cats were yet to make the NCAA tournament and were coming off of a brutal 13-19 (4-14 in Big Ten) 2012-13 season that slotted them second to last in the conference.
In his first year leading the program, Collins’ squad was still not really his team, with upperclassmen guards like Drew Crawford and JerShon Cobbs being talents from a prior era of Northwestern basketball. In 2013, the ‘Cats shot 30.6% from behind the arc, pacing the bottom of the Big Ten.
Since Collins’ first year in Evanston, Northwestern has had its ups and downs shooting the basketball, but, to put it bluntly, they’ve never been this bad. Of the rosters that Collins has had the jurisdiction over creating, this year’s is the worst from deep, shooting 31.1% on threes.
Northwestern’s loss to Nebraska was a stark reminder of the ‘Cats’ shooting woes this season. Northwestern made just three perimeter shots in forty minutes of action, shooting 20.0% from downtown. The ‘Cats’ poor shooting made it mathematically impossible to keep up with the Cornhuskers, who scored 33 points off of threes on 44.0% perimeter shooting. Nebraska’s best shooter, Sandfort, doubled the ‘Cats’ three-point total by himself, cashing in 6-of-13 triples.
While I tend to agree that Collins has gotten too much hate as of late for one bad season, statistics like these do make me scratch my head about this year’s squad. In the modern game, teams are shooting the three-ball as good as ever, with shooting becoming a somewhat fundamental basketball skill recruitable at all levels. There are currently three teams shooting over 40-percent from three this season and they’re all mid-major programs — Yale, Saint Louis and Belmont.
It is worth nothing that Jayden Reid and Max Green were brought in as highly-touted three-point shooters from mid-major and low-major program. Both have posted career-worst marks from distance in their first seasons in the Big Ten.
Maybe Collins just got unlucky, but it’s hard to look at Nebraska — and Yale, Saint Louis and Belmont — and not wonder what could have been.
Collins has settled on an end-of-year eight-man rotation
Despite Northwestern dropping its last five games, it appears that coach Collins has settled upon a permanent eight-man rotation to close out the season.
Yesterday, for the third consecutive game, Collins ran out a starting lineup consisting of Jake West, Jayden Reid, Nick Martinelli, Tre Singleton and Tyler Kropp, with Jordan Clayton, Angelo Ciaravino and Arrinten Page playing meaningful minutes coming off the bench. Though it’s possible that Collins continues to fiddle with his rotations in the team’s final five games, it seems that he’s committed to seeing this one out.
Throughout the ‘Cats’ dreadful 10-15 season, Collins has played around with rotations, never truly finding a lineup that has been able to satisfy him consistently. In previous blowout losses to Nebraska (earlier this year) and Illinois, Collins was quick to move away from a rotation when it collapsed. In the ‘Cats’ 77-58 January loss to Nebraska, Collins played Page for just nine minutes, after playing him for 30 minutes the prior game against Illinois. Meanwhile, Ciaravino and West saw a combined 18 additional minutes. Similarly, in the ‘Cats’ deflating 84-44 loss to Illinois in February, Collins abandoned rotational precedent, giving Justin Mullins, Phoenix Gill and K.J. Windham significant minutes. In Northwestern’s following game against Iowa, Collins shook things up and the ‘Cats stumbled upon its current lineup.
Over the past few games, despite the ‘Cats suffering two double-digit losses, Collins has opted for more rotational continuity. When things went awry against Michigan, Collins stuck to the aforementioned eight-man group. Similarly, against Nebraska, despite extreme offensive stagnation, the rotation did not waver. No additional players saw quality playing time and all players were within ten minutes of their playing time in the previous game.
Perhaps, Collins felt it was too late in the game to introduce new players to the game in the ‘Cats’ second half collapses against Michigan and Nebraska. However, it seems that he might be committed to riding out this eight-man rotation through March, with just five games remaining in the regular season.