Sunday was supposed to be a wholesome homecoming.
It was a full-circle moment for Doug Collins, Illinois State’s all-time leading scorer and the father of Northwestern head coach Chris Collins. He served as an honorary coach for both his alma mater and the team his son now leads, spending the first half on the Redbirds’ bench and the second with the Wildcats.
By night’s end, though, the younger Collins had little to show his father, as a retooled Northwestern squad dropped its exhibition opener 70-64 to Illinois State. Now, a team that had plenty of questions coming into the season has even more after the troubling loss, starting with: Can this group take care of the ball, and can it finish defensive possessions?
On Sunday, the answer to both was no.
The shooting split disparity tells an interesting story. Northwestern shot 51% from the field and went 6-for-14 from deep, compared to Illinois State’s 35.9% and 7-for-24, and led for more than half the game. It’s rare for a team with that kind of shooting edge to lose.
Northwestern found a way. Its 20 turnovers and Illinois State’s 18 offensive rebounds gave the Redbirds chance after chance to score, and by the end of the game, Illinois State had taken 64 shots to Northwestern’s 49.
The turnovers came early and often in Normal. Northwestern turned the ball over five times in the first five minutes and added seven more by halftime. A 61% first half covered most of those mistakes and gave Northwestern a 35-32 lead at the break, but that kind of shooting isn’t worth betting on, especially for a team still figuring each other out. As the ‘Cats cooled off to 42% in the second half, the giveaways did not, and the Redbirds made them pay. Illinois State finished with a 23-7 edge in points off turnovers, with a 12-1 advantage in the second half.
Many of those turnovers can be chalked up to chemistry. Of the 20, 10 came on bad passes and five more on offensive fouls. But this isn’t the same young roster the Wildcats had last season. LA Pratt, a graduate-student guard who transferred from Northeastern, had five turnovers while shooting 1-for-7. Redshirt junior forward Luke McEldon, a Mount St. Mary’s transfer, had four in just 14 minutes.
The most costly stretch of carelessness came at Northwestern’s high point. After a fast-break layup by Jack Karasinski, a graduate transfer from Bellarmine, put the Wildcats up 44-37 with 16:27 remaining, first-year center Symon Ghai threw the ball away on the next trip, and ISU’s Johnny Kinziger made them pay on the next possession with a transition three. The Wildcats wouldn’t make a field goal for five minutes, and by 11:13, when Karasanski hit a jumper, the seven-point lead was down to one.
If turnovers let Illinois State back in, offensive rebounding made the difference. Northwestern’s defense forced plenty of misses, but Illinois State got the ball back on many of them, grabbing 40% of its misses and outscoring the Wildcats 21-9 on second-chance opportunities.
Illinois State 6-foot-9 sophomore Noah Cleveland did most of the damage. The sophomore finished with 16 points and 15 rebounds, seven of them on the offensive glass. Northwestern’s bigs did little to slow him, with 6-foot-10 McEldon grabbing just one board in 14 minutes and 7-foot-3 Ghai getting six in 13 minutes off the bench.
The most brutal slips came on two of the most important late-game possessions.
The Redbirds finally took the lead over the Wildcats with 9:47 remaining. After Cleveland missed a free throw, senior forward Chase Mason grabbed the rebound, and the ball eventually landed in the hands of sophomore guard Mason Klabo, who sank a three.
Later, trailing by four with two minutes remaining, the ‘Cats had a prime opportunity to rebound a missed ISU three and bring themselves back within one possession with a score on the other end. But the Redbirds’ possession didn’t end there: Illinois State grabbed the offensive board, before Northwestern fouled Cleveland on his second-chance field goal attempt. The sophomore would hit both his free throws, pushing the deficit out to six. That single possession ran nearly 50 seconds off the clock when the Wildcats desperately needed all the time they could get to mount a comeback.
The positives were there. Sophomore guard Jake West finished with a team-high 14 points and seven assists, and Karasinski was the ‘Cats’ most efficient player from the floor, scoring 13 points on 5-for-6 shooting, including this triple with a lightning-fast release:
But it takes more than two good performances to win. Northwestern lost a game they should’ve controlled from tip-off to the final buzzer, but they couldn’t maintain ball control or end possessions on defense.
Those problems will be much harder to solve against Big Ten competition than against a mid-major in October.
Northwestern faces its first test against a Power Five school next Sunday, Oct. 25, when it welcomes back Tre Singleton and his new team, Iowa State, to Welsh-Ryan Arena. Until then, they’ll have a whole week to prove the mistakes in Normal were just growing pains for a new group, and not the first signs of a troubling pattern.