Welcome back to the third (and final) season of Collins’ Classroom, at least as written by me, since I’ll be graduating in the spring. If you’re new to this column, this space has been a weekly film review for Northwestern men’s basketball for the past two years. We’ve had some fun times and some not-so-fun moments over the past pair of seasons, breaking down the best and worst of ‘Cats hoops and Chris Collins’ spirited reactions.
This year, things will look a bit different. I have decided to move away from a pure film review column and open it up a bit. There will still be film, to be sure. I love breaking down defensive rotations and funky offensive sets, but a good film review takes time I don’t always have. Some weeks, this will be a stats-focused column, diving into some numbers that aren’t easily accessible or understandable. Some weeks, this column will just be my pure, unfiltered musings on NU basketball. Mostly, it will be some combination of the three. I also can’t promise a column every single week. It’s the unfortunate reality of being a senior, having a job and putting an emphasis on my broadcasting (shameless plug to tune into WNUR Sports, Northwestern’s student radio station, for live game calls and weekly podcasts). But as often as possible, my goal is to contribute a thoughtful, well-written piece on the team we all love, for better or worse.
If you’ve read my column before, thanks for sticking with me for another year. I promise to keep it as fun as possible with fresh insight, no matter what form it appears in. If you’re new here, welcome, and I hope you stick around. You can find my past work on Inside NU by searching for ‘Collins’ Classroom’ or my name (Eliav Brooks-Rubin).
After that extended intro, let’s just jump in. Consider this my preseason primer, with 15 thoughts, predictions and reactions as we head into the 15th season with Coach Collins at the helm.
1. Things may get ugly
There’s no point in sugarcoating. Northwestern basketball does not project to be any good this year whatsoever. Bart Torvik projects Northwestern as the 75th best team in the country. KenPom has the ‘Cats at 89th. EvanMiya ranks NU all the way at 98th. Northwestern was picked 16th in the preseason Big Ten rankings, above only Rutgers and Penn State (for what it’s worth, I have NU finishing 15th, above Oregon as well).
Simply put, this roster lacks talent. Jake West has the highest upside on the team as an explosively athletic point guard with a pretty jumper, but he’s still a sophomore, and he’s on the skinnier side. West showed a lot down the stretch, but averaged just 5.3 points for the season and shot a mere 40% from the floor (although 36% from three). He projects as an excellent player in his career, but putting the team on his shoulders for 34 minutes a night is unlikely to be a recipe for success night to night.
Beyond West, only four players on the roster have Power 5 experience. Angelo Ciaravino is a very solid role player, but he has noticeable flaws (no jumper, limited handle, random lapses on defense) that restrict him from being very good. He’s fine as the 5th-best player on a roster, but anything above that and you’re probably not looking at a tournament team. He may well be the second-best player for NU this season. Phoenix Gill barely touched the floor last year as a freshman in Evanston. Colin Smith spent two seasons at Vanderbilt and was solid (16 starts as a freshman, 7.1 PPG in seven games as a sophomore before injury), but has been at UCSB for the past two seasons. He’s also banged up and may not be ready to start the year. Lastly, Aleksej Kostic was borderline unplayable at BYU as a freshman. Kostic was a Shooter-Only at BYU with a 99th-percentile 3PAr (3-point attempt rate), paired with a 4th-percentile rim rate and a 2nd-percentile FTAr. The defense was untenably bad.
After that, it’s a lot of non-P5 talent who will have to take leaps or fit roles perfectly to give NU a chance to win a significant portion of conference games.
2. I like NU’s schedule
I have gone on record in previous seasons and expressed my disappointment at Northwestern’s non-conference scheduling and the lack of challenges. This year is different. Northwestern plays four P5 opponents plus Dayton, and the quality of opponents will be higher than in past years. DePaul hasn’t been a good opponent the past few seasons, but I’m very high on them this year. Oklahoma State should be up compared to last year in the return of the quasi-neutral game in Tulsa after last season’s game at the United Center. I love scheduling BYU as a quasi-neutral, and I think Virginia Tech and Dayton are good draws in the Charleston Classic.
While this is a tough year for NU to play harder teams (I predict a 1-4 record in the 5 games above, including a home loss to DePaul), I like the trend and think it’s important for Northwestern to continue, results notwithstanding. Teams rarely get dinged for close losses against good opponents, and the possibility of picking up a resume-defining win increases every time you play a marquee game. Remember, the ‘Cats took UVA to the wire (and should’ve won) last November, only for UVA to finish as a 3-seed and top 15 team.
3. Offense: not that bad
Now, don’t take this to mean the ‘Cats will be good. But the offense projects to be intriguing and there are always cool designs to be had within Collins’ scheme. The defense will likely be appalling, and the rebounding is extremely concerning, but these factors likely lead to a high-scoring, offense-first affair most times NU steps on the court. If you like watching the ball go in the hoop (and let’s face it, that’s typically more fun than hearing a clank), the ‘Cats should keep your attention.
There’s more shooting than in the past few years, thanks mostly to Smith and Karasinski in the frontcourt, plus West and Kostic in the backcourt. Pratt and Ciaravino are question marks there, but they’ll provide rim pressure and paint touches, with Ciaravino in particular adding offensive rebounds and thunderous dunks. The center position will be largely useless at putting the ball in the basket, but if whoever is at the five can set solid screens and provide decent hub passing (a la Matt Nicholson), it will keep things humming enough not to matter.
4. Glacial pace
I take back what I said four seconds ago about high-scoring affairs. The games will be offense-first, but only if you look at the metrics. I think Chris Collins will slow things down even more than he typically does.
This is Northwestern’s pace chart since 2010. You can see the significant drop in the year Collins took over. Carmody was playing slowly, and Collins came in and ran a glacial tempo. The peak in 2021 was 157th of 348, with 2022 the only other year NU ranked inside the top 200 in pace. From 2023-25, Northwestern was outside the top 300 in pace of play before jumping up to 296 a season ago. I wouldn’t be surprised if Chris Collins played the slowest pace of his career this year, finishing under 61 possessions per game and in the bottom 15 in the country. Without any defense or rebounding to speak of, Northwestern’s best chance of pulling out upsets is to drag opponents into rock fights and rely on shooting variance and ball control (NU never turns the ball over) to steal a few.
5. Exhibitions don’t matter
I know, I know, Northwestern lost to mid-major Illinois State and then got waxed by Tre Singleton and Iowa State. Both games were extremely ugly (so I heard, I couldn’t bring myself to watch either). However, it’s an exhibition for a reason. Michigan lost to non-tournament Cincinnati last year before going on to win the National Championship. Georgetown beat Kentucky, who beat Purdue. The Hoyas went on to finish last in the Big East, while Kentucky was a disappointing 8-seed and Purdue a 2-seed who made the Elite Eight. These games are for coaches to find out what they have on the roster and make tweaks. They are not for fans to overreact to the result. Bring back the art of the Secret Scrimmage. I don’t even want to know who Northwestern is playing in exhibitions or when.
6. Leave Chris Collins alone
If you’re a long-time reader, you know I’m a firm believer in Collins. You may have even seen me engaging in Twitter/X discourse on him as recently as last week. I have no qualms about saying that anyone who wants to fire Collins or place him on the hot seat is extremely shortsighted and/or misguided. Collins is no worse than a top-50ish coach in the country, with a job I probably wouldn’t rank inside the top-80 most desirable CBB coaching jobs because of resources, program history and academic restrictions.
There are no more than four teams spending as little money as Northwestern on basketball this year in the Big Ten. At least two teams in the conference are nearly tripling Northwestern’s roster budget. In this era, it’s untenable to sustain success at that sort of disadvantage. Last year was disappointing, and a vaunted recruiting class nearly all departed. Collins has also struggled in late-game situations over the past two seasons. That said, we’re at least three years away from even considering moving on from the best and most successful coach in Northwestern history. Beyond the fact that, as recently as last year, people were concerned Collins would move on to something better because of his coaching talent, replacing him and spending money on Collins’ buyout and not investing in the roster is a ridiculous allocation of already limited resources.
7. LA Pratt will be Northwestern’s second-best player
It may take Pratt a bit to get going, but he could be a dynamic backcourt partner for West. I broke this down in my transfer analysis of Pratt, which you can read here, but Pratt is schematically a wonderful fit alongside Northwestern’s sophomore leader. Pratt’s best trait is his downhill pressure, which shows up in rim attacking and transition. As it happens, that was the biggest weak point in Jake West’s game as a first-year. It may take Pratt a while to get going since he is returning from an injury that limited his senior campaign to three games, but if he finds a groove, Northwestern will have a multi-faceted backcourt attack that can do everything.
8. Symon Ghai: learning on the fly
I’ve been vocal since Ghai committed to play for Collins that I think he’ll be a good player, but he shouldn’t play as a freshman. I’m officially declaring my stance changed. The center position is extremely weak for Northwestern, with McEldon disappointing majorly in exhibitions (I was already low on him) and Soulis looking similarly unusable. That leaves Ghai as the only center left, with Okku Federiko a viable candidate for small-ball center minutes if Northwestern decides it wants to play five-out offensively.
Ghai won’t be great. He’ll make offensive mistakes and look raw. He’ll be out of position defensively a lot. But at a certain point, if none of the centers project to contribute much offensively, Collins may as well go with the 7-foot-3 guy who can protect the rim by virtue of being tall and long (neither McEldon or Soulis can block shots at all). Given that this should be treated as a developmental year in many ways to test what’s on the roster for next season, and the advent of 5-in-5 meaning that there’s no point in redshirting, there’s no reason for Ghai not to get serious burn unless McEldon and Soulis figure it out. There’s tantalizing potential in that skinny Sudanese frame, and Ghai immediately realizing his potential is the best chance for Northwestern to make a shocking tournament push
9. Northwestern loses a buy game
Last time this happened, Northwestern was recently coming off an upset of No. 1 Purdue at home. The ‘Cats were ranked No. 25 and hosted an awful Chicago State team, who beat them in a truly miserable affair, earning a ban of the gray jerseys for a season and a half.
I don’t think NU will lose to Chicago State this year, but the ‘Cats play Binghamton, Stony Brook, Boston University, Northeastern and Mercyhurst as well as the Cougars, and I think NU will drop one (Stony Brook or BU would be my pick). There’s just not enough talent gap between NU and their mid-major opponents for me to be confident NU wins all of their buy games. Side note: it’s fun that NU is playing two opponents they brought transfers in from: Columbia and Northeastern. More teams should do that. Another reason to like the schedule (see: point 2)
10. Season prediction
Overall record: 12-20
Conference record: 5-15 (15th in B1G)
Best win: at Ohio State
Worst loss: vs. Stony Brook
MVP: Jake West (Earns All-Big Ten HM)
Best newcomer: LA Pratt
Biggest floor setters: Jake West, Colin Smith
Biggest ceiling raisers: Symon Ghai, Angelo Ciaravino
Guys I don’t mention anywhere else in this column because I have no idea what to do with them or how to project them for various reasons: Phoenix Gill, Okku Federiko, Jayden Hodge.
11-15. Quick hitters
11. I am out on Jack Karasinski. His defense is so disgustingly poor to me that I can’t support his offensive talent on the court for more than about 22 minutes a night. Get ready for 31 minutes of this guy every single game.
12. Colin Smith will be the glue guy. He’s a veteran, he can shoot, he’s spent time in the SEC and I think he’ll be the team’s most important “beyond the numbers” guy.
13. There’s a lot of positional size but no athleticism on this roster and no shot blocking outside of maybe Ghai. I expect Chris Collins to pack the paint, double the post and generally do whatever he can to prevent easy points. If Northwestern allows a 3PAr of 45% (would rank around top-30 nationally in highest 3-point rate allowed), I would be unsurprised. There will be games where Northwestern gives up 15 3-point makes and loses by 25. But their best shot at beating good teams is hoping a team goes 7-for-30 from deep and doesn’t get the easy stuff in the paint.
14. Matt Nicholson would solve 60% of the problems on this year’s roster. I miss him. Northwestern fans didn’t appreciate what he provided nearly enough.
15. Enjoy the other 364 teams! Northwestern will be frustrating, folks. But college basketball is the best sport out there (for my money, at least) and there’s a lot of fun ball to be had. Here’s a few teams I’m really looking forward to watching this season that I’d recommend checking out when the Wildcats have you in the dumps:
SEC: Arkansas (this is entirely for Jordan Smith Jr., likely to be my favorite player in the country as a freshman)
Big East: Marquette
Big 12: Iowa State (enjoy Tre Singleton! Don’t be mad that he’s gone)
ACC: Miami (HM: Virginia)
Pac-12 (it’s back!): Colorado State (and Gonzaga, obviously, but we can do better)
Mountain West: New Mexico
A10: VCU/Saint Louis (Don’t make me pick)
Assorted mid-majors: Illinois State (not just because of the exhibition), Harvard, High Point, Tulsa, UC Irvine, UC San Diego, UT-Martin, UNCW, Miami OH (again!), Murray State, West Florida (brand new to D-I)
Teams with Northwestern transfers: Charleston (Max Green), Iowa State (Tre Singleton, already mentioned), James Madison (K.J. Windham), Massachusetts (Jordan Clayton), Memphis (Jayden Reid), Oral Roberts (Blake Smith), Providence (Arrinten Page), UNC (Cade Bennerman, don’t think he’ll play much)
Big Ten: Minnesota (Illinois and Nebraska are also on my list, but I recognize the hatred may run too deep for some to enjoy watching them)
Final thoughts
If you made it to the bottom of this, thank you so much for taking the time. This is (probably) the longest article I’ll write all year. I hope you’ll come back for more. I’m excited to be writing this column for one final year.