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 15–5 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. After five consecutive seasons finishing under .500, they’re in position for just the second NCAA tournament berth in program history, pegged as a No. 10 seed in Sports Illustrated’s latest bracket projection.
The catalyst for that turnaround? Redshirt senior guard Chase Audige, who has blossomed into one of the nation’s best defenders and put together a bounce-back season offensively. He leads the Big Ten in steals per game, landed on the Naismith Defensive Player of the Year watch list last week and is one of just two players in the country averaging at least 15 points, three rebounds, three assists and 2.5 steals per game.
