Northwestern, picked second to last in the men’s Big Ten preseason poll, sits alone in second place in the conference as January winds down.
At 6–3 in league play and 15–15 overall, the Wildcats have been one of the biggest surprise teams not just in the Big Ten, but in all of college basketball. They’ve won at Michigan State and Indiana, beat in-state rival Illinois and have built a résumé with four Quadrant 1 wins, tied for third most in the Big Ten. And the ’Cats have done all this despite losing their top two big men from last year’s team to the transfer portal, with Pete Nance spending his last year of eligibility at North Carolina and Ryan Young wrapping up his career at Duke.