In precisely one month, Northwestern men’s basketball will look to do something never accomplished before in its lengthy program history: earn consecutive berths to the NCAA Tournament. In fact, the Wildcats haven’t finished with a winning record in back-to-back years since 2017, the season of the school’s only other March Madness appearance.
For the vast majority of the last few years, expectations had bottomed out surrounding the ‘Cats, with the team consistently picked to finish in the bottom half of the Big Ten. That’s starkly changed in advance of 2023-24, however. Fifth-year point guard Boo Buie was voted a preseason First-Team All-American by ESPN’s Dick Vitale, while NCAA.