I find myself back in town next weekend. Wisconsin flopped, weather wise, at least game was close. Minnesota is about 2 hours in the air. So wheels up by 10 gives plenty of wiggle room. Game over by 5 means touchdown around 7.

Anyone want to come with? Winnable game. Arena I have never seen. I have three open seats.

Rough outing for the Wildcats up in Minnesota... The numbers...


Barnhizer's -19 jumps out. We only scored 50 points in 39 minutes when Brooks was in the game.
Ty Berry's 3 of 11 shooting, combined with 3 turnovers and no steals, puts him at the bottom of the performances, although he was only -2 for the game.
Blake Preston put up a decent showing. When paired in the frontcourt with Nick Martinelli for 3 segments, the Cats won one 5-2, another 5-0 and the other 3-2.
Nicholson and Martinelli also smacked Minnesota around, winning 15-8 over 8:20.
On the opposite side of the coin, when Luke Hunger and Martinelli were paired in the frontcourt, NU got destroyed 14-0 in 5 minutes, including the 10-0 Gopher run to end the first half.

What is notable is that Minnesota really struggled on offense when Martinelli was on the court with Preston or Nicholson.
To me that makes sense. We were pretty small when Martinelli was on the bench. Minnesota had two effective bigs. Hunger doesn't defend like Preston and Nicholson.

With 8:18 left in regulation, Collins sat Barnhizer and played Nicholson with Martinelli, Berry, Langborg and Buie.
The Cats went on an 8-2 run to open a 54-46 lead with 5:25 to go.
Martinelli grabbed a defensive board but turned the ball over and Collins put Barnhizer back in for Martinelli.
Minnesota then wore the Cats down with a 15-4 run.
It continued in OT, with an additional 10-2 for the Gophers before Martinelli came back into the game with 50 seconds left.
Basically a 25-6 beatdown for the starters over a 10 minute span.
Martinelli was +9 in the 2nd half prior to being benched. He didn't play a great game, but we were better with him on the court.
Hunger didn't play in the 2nd half. When he was out there with the 4 starters in the first half, NU won 8-4 over 5 minutes.

Lastly, the Golden Lineup (Nicholson, Martinelli, Barnhizer, Berry, Buie) played 2:13 early in the game and put up a 5-0 win.
That continues to be our best lineup. We continue to use it sparingly. Subbing Martinelli in for Langborg more than once a game would help...

With fatigue looming as an issue, we really need another viable look to get some size on the court... It has to be Hunger at the 4, doesn't it?

Landon Lauter is a local kid from Glenbrook North, just nine miles away from Evanston. He became the second PWO DL to commit to Northwestern this winter, picking the Wildcats over Illinois, SMU and other FBS walkon offers.

Leo Almanza Jr has 10 offers to play cornerback, but Northwestern was the first to offer him as a wide receiver. Here's our story on the 2025 athlete and his recruitment by the Wildcats, so far.

At the halfway point of the B1G season, no team in the top 5 in the standings has beaten a top 5 team on the road. There have been 10 such games so far. As a testament to the weirdness of the conference schedule so far, 9 of the 10 games have involved either the Cats or Nebraska ( or both). The only of these games not involving a team named NU was Illinois at Purdue.
Purdue and Northwestern are the only teams to reach the halfway point without a loss to a team in the bottom 9.

The Cats game with Nebraska will be the last they have against a team in the current top 5.

While the Badgers have gotten the biggest break in the first half (home v. Cats and Huskers, road v. Nebraska), they have trips to Illinois and Purdue in the 2nd half.

Hats off to whichever of the top teams that actually get a road win against a top team. The Cats had their last chance on Wednesday.

With the increased rate of PWO offers, we're not always going to make them front page stories but I still thought there were a couple key takeaways from my interview with PWO offer CB Kai Brown.

He's currently committed to the Colorado School of Mines and while he's thinking about taking a visit to NU this spring, he said it's still very much on the table he signs with them on Feb. 7

The biggest takeaway was he said that coaches pitched him on playing at the Bears stadium or Cubs stadium the next two years. In the back of my head I've assumed there'd be few games at Soldier as possible given that grass is shitty enough as it is with just the Bears playing on it, but it seems they're incorporating it or the potential as a pitch for guys coming in for 2024 at this point in the cycle.

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Cats offer Michael O’Connell out of Glenbard West. He’s a big kid 6’7”, 270 lbs. Looks like we’re his first P4 offer.

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Sportsmanship? Disrespecting your opponent? Spitting in their face! Having your shooter intentionally step across the line and cancel the four post game gift fts would have earned Painter and Purdue international respect. Instead, they shat on our effort. I think they say "karma is a bitch!"
(This is a form of sarcasm)

Here's the story from Edgy...

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at the thought of Schill and/or Gragg representing Northwestern’s best interests at these meetings.

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Landon Lauter is a local kid from Glenbrook North, just nine miles away from Evanston. He became the second PWO DL to commit to Northwestern this winter, picking the Wildcats over Illinois, SMU and other FBS walkon offers.

Northwestern (15-6, 6-4 Big Ten) is on the road at Minnesota (13-7, 4-5 Big Ten) this afternoon at 1 pm. The game will air on BTN.

Northwestern earned a commitment from three-star TE Zach Giuliano today, their third commit in three days. Here's our breaking news story on Giuliano, more to come from WildcatReport.

Northwestern will host some of its top 2025 targets on Saturday for an Elite Junior Day event in Evanston.

This is sort of a hybrid of a traditional Junior Day mass visit that other programs put on, and the smaller visit weekends that the program has favored in the past.

WildcatReport has learned that seven 2025 targets will be on campus, along with several 2024 preferred walkon prospects. Five of the 2025s have double-digit offers, and all of them have at least one Power Four offer. Northwestern has offered all but two of them -- but that could change this weekend.

Here is the list of visitors expected:


DE Austin Alexander

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Northwestern offer: Jan. 27

Total offers: 24

Power Four: 16



RB Gabe Fields

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Northwestern offer: No offer yet. One could be coming this weekend.

Total offers: 3

Power Four: 2



TE Zach Giuliano

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Northwestern offer: No offer yet. One could be coming this weekend.

Total offers: 16

Power Four: 14



OL Michael O’Connell

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Northwestern offer: Jan. 23

Total offers: 3

Power Four: 1



DE Caden O’Rourke

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Northwestern offer: June 20, 2023

Total offers: 14

Power Four: 8



DT Tommy Rupley

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Northwestern offer: June 29, 2023

Total offers: 9

Power Four: 7



RB Jonathan Stevens Jr.

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Northwestern offer: Oct. 1, 2023

Total offers: 12

Power Four: 3

Northwestern is getting straight to work on their Class of 2025, inviting Oswego (Ill.) linebacker Carson Cooney to a bowl practice and extending him an offer last weekend.

Can the cats come back and win on the road after an emotional loss against one of the best teams in the country??

This game will tell us a lot.

Northwestern is getting straight to work on their Class of 2025, inviting Oswego (Ill.) linebacker Carson Cooney to a bowl practice and extending him an offer last weekend.

Here are our takeaways from a tough loss for Northwestern at Minnesota.

One consistent problem has been going ice cold from the field in crunch time on the road. The guys are tired. Long minutes for the same guys is taking a toll. Home crowd can help energize them but the final stretches at Neb, Wis, Pur, Minn have been really rough. This “easy” back half of the schedule becoming very stressful. Nebraska at home becomes a big one, which is anxiety inducing.

Nebraska is a Q2 game at home and they’ve been terrible on the road. Then have to hold serve at home minus 1 and win at Rutgers and at Indiana. We can do it. We saw the team last year respond after crushing B2B Ls. But if we lose versus Nebraska… that would be a horrible sign. Regroup.

I’m a big fan after BB and MN. But he better start learning a better way to utilize his off arm on the drive. He looked like he hooked every drive.

In their shot and their premium club. The fear Him greatly.

I am thinking of heading up to Evanston this morning, any recommendations on NU apparel stores? I was always a Let's Tailgate guy but not sure since they sold.

Here are our takeaways from a tough loss for Northwestern at Minnesota.

the missed FT's in the 2nd half (and OT for that matter) have to be at the top of the list. We overcame 18 TO's to win at Penn State and were in line to do it today but some key misses down the stretch by Buie and Barnhizer really hurt. We led for almost the entirety of that game but still lost. Credit Buie for making the last two at regulation for sure, but some makes earlier in the last 4 minute stretch would've given us a bit more distance and helped with applying some extra scoreboard pressure. Barnhizer's miss inside the last minute of regulation to leave us up only 2 instead of 3 really, really hurt. Sure enough, Minny hits a 3 to take the lead. Hit your FT's and we win that game. Crazy that MN hit BOTH his FT's and we still ended up just 13-20.

I do not have confidence when either Barnhizer or Langborg go to the line. Both shoot very flat FT's that make it hard to go in unless it's a clean make. Buie is generally very solid with FT's down the stretch and actually Ty Berry is now automatic (which a good shooter should be). Berry didn't get to the line at all though so it was up to the others to shoot them and they didn't deliver.