On March 5, 2023, Chris Collins walked off the court at Jersey Mike’s Arena with his right arm wrapped around the back of his son Ryan, a manager for Northwestern and a Communication sophomore. The Wildcats had just knocked off Rutgers in the RAC — one of college basketball’s most hostile environments — to secure a program-record 12th conference win and effectively shore up an NCAA Tournament bid.
After years of toiling in the Big Ten’s basement, the duo of Boo Buie and Chase Audige, under Collins’ tutelage, coalesced into one of the nation’s best backcourts, sparking a meteoric rise near the top of the conference’s standings.
But, for Collins, this moment was about a father and son, a three-generation basketball lineage celebrating a turning of the tide.
“To be able to share that journey — the highs and lows — have been special,” Collins said. “It just took me back to my dad coaching the Bulls and I was a ball boy. … That was exactly what I used to do with my dad — we used to walk arm and arm down to the locker room.”
Two weeks later, the ’Cats would knock off 10-seed Boise State in the round of 64 — the program’s second-ever win in March Madness — before falling five points short of the Sweet 16 in a loss to UCLA.
In the span of a year, Collins moved from the hot seat to inking a contract extension through 2028, with the expectation of making the NCAA Tournament in back-to-back seasons.
Now, as NU enters the 2023-24 campaign, Collins and the ’Cats have received the positive preseason prognostications that would’ve seemed foreign just two years ago.
For Collins, the high expectations come with the territory.
“Not taking our foot off the gas pedal in any way,” Collins said. “We still have a lot more we want to accomplish. We’ve still got a lot of hungry guys that want to prove themselves as players, and we still feel like we have a lot to prove as a program.”
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Subject to a 112-76 shellacking at the hands of Iowa, NU’s 2021-22 campaign ended in anguish in the second round of the Big Ten Tournament in Indianapolis. Frontcourt mainstays Pete Nance and Ryan Young departed for the two blue blood programs situated on Tobacco Road, and Collins was tasked “with making necessary to build towards success in the 2022-23 campaign.”
Those 11 words, handed down from Athletic Director Derrick Gragg in March 2022, all but ensured that should NU remain idling among the conference’s bottom dwellers, Collins’ decade-long tenure in Evanston would be over. The odds of another contract extension seemed to be on life support when NU was pegged to finish 13th in the conference’s preseason media poll.
Despite a public shaming of sorts and negativity surrounding the program ahead of the season, Collins was “at peace” regarding his job security.
Chalk it up to being a coach’s son — or the inevitable instability and turbulence that comes with leading a Power Five basketball program — but the 49-year-old wasn’t worried about Gragg’s declaration.
“What you realize in this business is, if you hang around long enough, eventually you’re probably going to be in a situation where there’s change,” Collins said. “It was really all about just being at my very best for these guys.”
Collins did just that.
The addition of assistant coach Chris Lowery ushered in a defensive renaissance for the ’Cats, who catapulted the team’s defense from a middling unit to one of the nation’s most suffocating, finishing 22nd in the country in defensive efficiency.
Buie and Audige, two guards who opted to stay alongside Collins in Evanston rather than transfer elsewhere, both made massive offensive leaps, combining for 31 points per game to form an all-conference backcourt tandem.
Collins, whose 22 wins earned him Big Ten Coach of the Year honors, deflected individual praise to his players consistently. Still, he coached the team to the program’s first win over an AP No. 1, a sweep of Indiana, a double-bye in the conference tournament and a berth in the Big Dance.
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Ahead of NU’s season opener Monday against Binghamton, Collins has made it clear he’s done talking about last year. His roster has been retooled with six new faces, but he retains much of his key core from last year’s March run, highlighted by Buie and junior guard Brooks Barnhizer. Expectations inside and outside of Welsh-Ryan Arena revolve around a return to the NCAA Tournament.
Collins faced a similar scenario six years ago, boasting a team that returned six of its top seven scorers from a squad that had secured the program’s first NCAA Tournament bid. As the only two teams in program history to eye a return to the dance, comparisons between the 2017-18 and 2023-24 squads are inevitable.
Recounting the team’s experience six years ago, Collins said he was a young coach still figuring things out as the season progressed. Ranked in the AP’s preseason top 25 poll, the ’Cats dropped out by the third week, having sustained losses to Creighton and Texas Tech.
“It was kind of the same team,” Collins said. “It’s obviously good because you have the camaraderie, but when you don’t have any new personalities it can get a little stale amongst the guys. … (This year) there’s so many new faces in our locker room, which I think can be a positive because it brings some new energy.”
As the three transfers and trio of freshmen acclimated to life in Evanston over the summer, Collins said he and the team worked hard to reinstill its values, however cliche that may sound.
Collins brought in a pair of graduate student transfers — Princeton guard Ryan Langborg and Liberty forward Blake Preston — from winning programs to fill voids as veteran presences on the perimeter and in the frontcourt, respectively. The addition of sophomore guard Justin Mullins, a local product out of Oak Park, gave Collins a much-needed athletic wing.
“Having some older guys to reinstill (our identity) helps, where it’s not just our coaches,” Collins said. “It’s guys that have embraced that defensive identity, that toughness, that chip on our shoulder (mentality). Our guys really rallied around that and it needs to be a fabric of who we are going forward.”
Reflecting on the 2017-18 season, Ryan Collins said he thinks his father realized the team’s culture got lost in the magic of March from the previous year.
This time around, Ryan Collins said his father is coaching with the same fire he had last season, with recognition from both coaches and players that the team can chase history once again.
“There’s a lot of expectation on this team, but I think the guys are ready for that,” Ryan Collins said. “They’re hungry … because they have a chance to do what that other team couldn’t and get back to the tournament and try to make a deep run.”
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NU’s 85-63 exhibition win against Division II McKendree University offered a small glimpse at what Chris Collins’ latest bunch of ’Cats will look like.
Barnhizer lived up to the preseason billing, stuffing the stat sheet with 29 points, seven boards, five steals, four blocks and four assists. Langborg’s ability to stretch the floor was on full display, while Mullins’ performance as a two-way slasher was impressive.
NU connected on 39.4% of its attempts from 3-point range, a seven-point percentage jump from last season’s mark of 32.1%, which ranked 282nd nationally, according to KenPom. The offense, which Chris Collins lamented as “timely” last season, looked explosive and efficient with Buie and Barnhizer at the helm.
On Monday, Chris Collins’ 11th season in Evanston begins against Binghamton. There is palpable buzz surrounding the team’s ceiling this season — most notably hopes of another NCAA Tournament berth.
Now, it’s time to see if Chris Collins can put the pieces together once again.
“It’s a close-knit group. They like being around each other, they like playing with each other,” Chris Collins said. “But it’s a big TBD until we get out there and play someone else. … I’ve always said you don’t get redo’s. Once Nov. 6 hits, everything counts.”
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