Year eight of the Chris Collins era tipped off tonight with Northwestern (1-0) defeating the opponent Collins first faced back at the start of his Northwestern tenure, Eastern Illinois (0-1), winning tonight’s game by the comfortable score of 80-56. The victory improved Collins’ record in his first game of the season at NU to 7-1, with the lone loss coming to Merrimack two seasons ago.
In the double-digit win, Boo Buie, Pete Nance and Ty Berry led the way by scoring 17, 13 and 13 points for the Wildcats, respectively. As a team, Northwestern performed well defensively by holding EIU to 37% from the field while also grabbing 16 steals, with Robbie Beran and Buie each securing five of those.