When people talk about the greatest college basketball teams of all time, they mention Duke, Kentucky, UCLA and several other historically great programs. The term “blue blood” refers to the elite programs of college basketball who consistently win no matter the obstacles. Mike Krzyzewski took his Blue Devils to 13 Final Fours across five decades.
However, Northwestern’s blood couldn’t be further from the coveted cobalt blue. NU has made the NCAA Tournament three times in the tournament’s nearly 90-year history. Here’s a look at that troubled history.
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The Northwestern Purple’s first men’s basketball season was in 1905, when it went 2-2 under Coach Thomas Holland in the Western Conference. Its first winning season was in 1913, when it went 14-4 under first-year coach Dennis Grady (Grady also served as Northwestern’s football coach that same year).
Following Grady’s departure, Northwestern endured a string of losing seasons until 1928, when Dutch Lonborg began his 23-year tenure as NU’s coach. Lonborg inherited the Northwestern Wildcats, who played in the newly created Big Ten. He went 12-5 in his first season, then won the Big Ten Conference Championship in the 1931 season with a 16-1 overall record and 11-1 conference record. He won the conference championship again in 1933, tying Ohio State with a 10-2 Big Ten record.
Lonborg’s 23 years at Northwestern were characterized by winning, as he accumulated 237 victories during his time in Evanston. Unfortunately for Lonborg, his teams are too old to have stats or game logs, so the 1931 and 1933 Wildcats, the only Northwestern men’s basketball teams to have ever won the Big Ten, are honorable mentions for the greatest Wildcat teams of all time.
Side note: Also deserving recognition is the legendary football alumnus Otto Graham, who came to Northwestern on a basketball scholarship and made an All-American team in his junior and senior seasons of 1943 and 1944.
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Nonetheless, since 1947, the first year for which Sports-Reference includes stats and game scores, here are the top five Northwestern basketball teams of all time.
All stats are from Sports-Reference.
Number 5: 1983 — 17-13, 8-10 Big Ten
Admittedly, a 17-13 record is underwhelming for a team ranked as the fifth-best Northwestern basketball team of all time.
Yet, 1983’s ranking is due to two things.
First, Northwestern basketball is the opposite of a storied and winning program. When comparing it to Illinois, a program that is viewed as having a pretty good basketball history, Northwestern’s shortcomings become clear. While Sports-Reference shows that 55 of Illinois’ basketball teams finished with a simple rating system score above 10 (a general rating for each college basketball team in each year), Northwestern has had 10 teams in its history in double digits.
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Second, I’m giving a team that was an outlier for its winning some recognition. From 1960 to 2010, only eight NU teams finished the season with a winning record. The 1983 team stands out as a rarity.
The 1983 Wildcats were coached by Rich Falk, a Northwestern legend himself who scored 49 points in a game in 1964. The ‘Cats were led by Jim Stack and Art Aaron, who averaged 14.9 and 14.5 points per game, respectively.
The calling card of Evanston basketball in 1983, however, was defense. Northwestern held its opponents to under 60 points per game throughout the season, fielding a roster in which nine of the 13 players who logged stats were at least 6-foot-5. That included two seven-footers. The ‘Cats were pioneers of the size movement across basketball, stacking their team with lengthy forwards who could guard anyone.
The 1983 ‘Cats beat eventual Sweet 16 member Ohio State in the regular season as well as pulling off a top-25 upset over Purdue. Their style slowed the game down and always kept them within striking distance of their opponent. Northwestern beat Notre Dame in the opening round of the NIT that year, before falling to DePaul.
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The 1983 team provided a brief stint of entertaining, gritty basketball amid a dark cloud of losing.
Number 4: 2017 — 24-12, 10-8 Big Ten
Now is when we get to the four core teams in Northwestern basketball history.
In 2017, Coach Chris Collins established himself as the future of the program. It was Northwestern’s first time finishing the regular season with a conference record above .500 in almost 50 years. The ‘Cats won two games in the Big Ten Tournament, making it to the conference semifinals. The team made its first-ever NCAA tournament appearance and won its first tournament game in school history. 2017 was a year of firsts, and put Wildcat basketball back on the map.
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NU was led by Bryant McIntosh (14.8 points per game), Scottie Lindsey (14.1 points per game) and Vic Law (12.3 points and 5.8 rebounds per game). The ‘Cats allowed the 35th fewest points per game in the country despite playing eight players significant minutes, all with heights between 6-foot-2 and 6-foot-8. They played a scrappy style of basketball which allowed them to pull off several upsets over the course of the season.
In 2017, Northwestern upset No. 7 Wisconsin at the Kohl Center and beat the eventual Big Ten Tournament champions, Michigan, on a two-point buzzer-beater by Derek Pardon. They beat No. 25 Maryland in the conference tournament quarterfinals, securing their first March Madness bid.
In the tournament, the No. 8-seeded Wildcats knocked off No. 9-seeded Vanderbilt 68-66 behind 25 points from McIntosh. In the Round of 32, they fell behind No. 1-seeded and eventual national runner-up Gonzaga by 18 in the first half before clawing all the way back to make it a possession-by-possession game in the final minutes. NU lost to the Bulldogs by six after an untimely Chris Collins technical foul effectively ended the comeback attempt.
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The 2017 team wasn’t the most talented roster and lacked any superstar punch, but they were a group of players fighting for the colors of their jerseys inspired by an ascending coach. 2017 was a taste of what was yet to come.
Number 3: 1959 — 15-7, 8-6 Big Ten
This isn’t a joke. We are going back 67 years for the third-best Northwestern basketball team of all time.
The 1959 Wildcats, coached by Bill Rohr, fielded a roster that included three players who would play in the NBA at some point in their careers. 6-foot-9 senior Joe Ruklick averaged 23 points and 13 rebounds per game while Nick Mantis and Willie Jones averaged 14.9 and 12.9 points, respectively. The ‘Cats scored more than 80 points per game in a time without the three-point shot.
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This top-end talent led to Northwestern’s highest AP ranking of all time in the 1959 season as it was slotted as high as No. 6 in the AP Poll for multiple weeks. The ‘Cats finished the year tied for second in the Big Ten conference and barely missed out on the NCAA Tournament (only 23 schools received tournament bids in 1959).
For this reason, the 1959 team’s greatness is somewhat of a what-if. They dropped several Big Ten games to inferior opponents, preventing them from making a postseason appearance, but also collected wins over some of the best teams in the sport.
In nonconference play, Northwestern beat eventual Final Four member Louisville on the road and later knocked off the eventual NCAA runner-up, Jerry West’s West Virginia. The legendary West, who averaged more than 26 points per game on the season, brought his team to McGaw Memorial Hall (what is now Welsh-Ryan Arena) and lost to the Wildcats 118-109 in double overtime.
Northwestern’s team in 1959 undoubtedly would have received an NCAA Tournament bid in the modern era. The small size of the tournament combined with multiple head-scratching losses by the ‘Cats prevented a great team from becoming legendary. It was a shame Ruklick and company failed to qualify for the postseason which could have started a domino effect of ascension for the Northwestern basketball program.
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Number 2: 2024 — 22-12, 12-8 Big Ten
It’s hard to distinguish between the top two Northwestern teams of all time as they had incredibly similar rosters and end-of-year results. Yet, it’s a fact that Boo Buie and Chris Collins’ 2023 and 2024 campaigns were unforgettable highlights in the program’s history.
The 2024 team ranks second of the two on this list mainly because of its inconsistency and failure to meet the higher expectations set due to the success of the previous year. The team lacked the week-to-week winning and underdog magic that made the 2023 group special.
In 2024, Buie averaged 19 points in his final year of college basketball, Brooks Barnhizer began to look like the NBA player he would later become and Ryan Langborg transferred in and averaged 12.7 points on 42% from three. The ‘Cats were the seventh-best 3-point shooting team in the country in 2024, but their reliance on the deep ball contributed to the roller coaster season they experienced.
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The team dropped an early game to Mississippi State in nonconference play, but then, two games later, upset Zach Edey and No. 1 Purdue at Welsh-Ryan Arena. Buie had 31 points in the ‘Cats’ second straight year of pulling off the impossible over the top-ranked Boilermakers.
Just as vibes returned to an all-time high at the peak of the Collins era, Northwestern lost to Chicago State on its home floor. It was about as bad a loss as a team can have, and the euphoria of beating Purdue was erased.
However, things did even out throughout the year as Northwestern defeated Michigan State and Illinois at home, cementing Welsh-Ryan as a dangerous place to play.
After flaming out in the Big Ten Tournament for the second straight year, Northwestern entered the NCAA Tournament in 2024 with experience and the mindset that it could play with anyone. The ‘Cats proceeded to beat No. 8-seeded FAU, who went to the Final Four the previous season, in an overtime first-round thriller.
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They marched on to be dispatched by the eventual champion UConn Huskies, but Northwestern proved themselves once more as worthy competitors on the main stage. It wasn’t the second-weekend run fans dreamed of, but it was a fitting end to the Buie era.
Number 1: 2023 — 22-12, 12-8 Big Ten
While perhaps less talented on paper than the 2024 team, the 2023 edition of Northwestern men’s basketball was the greatest team in program history.
After the bliss and elation of the 2017 season, Collins’ team began to falter in the following years. Northwestern’s upward trajectory caught multiple snags, including an 8-23 season in 2020.
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2023 was the bounce-back year.
Buie took the step toward stardom, averaging 17.3 points and leading the Wildcats into battle every night. Chase Audige finished his college career on a high note, scoring 14.1 points per game and playing elite defense. The 2023 ‘Cats also featured Ty Berry and younger versions of Barnhizer and Nick Martinelli, rounding out a deep roster that had impact players on both ends of the floor.
The ‘Cats finished third in the Big Ten that year, holding their opponents to 62.8 points per game, ranked 23rd in the nation. They upset Michigan State at the Breslin Center in December and won at Assembly Hall against No. 15 Indiana in January. After that, they also won at Rutgers, Ohio State, Wisconsin and Nebraska, establishing themselves as one of the Big Ten’s most dangerous road teams. Northwestern’s defensive identity combined with the stardom of Buie were the perfect mix for a team that could beat anyone, anywhere, anytime.
This all led up to the Wildcats’ February matchup with the Boilermakers. Edey and No. 1 Purdue presented a golden opportunity for another statement win.
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Buie’s 26 points and a second-half comeback enabled Northwestern to pull off one of the school’s sporting moments of the decade, upsetting Purdue on its home floor. The ‘Cats did it again a year later, but that first groundbreaking victory will always taste the sweetest. They slayed the dragon and secured their spot in the Big Dance.
The ‘Cats entered the NCAA Tournament as a No. 7 seed and defeated Boise State in the opening round. No. 2-seeded UCLA awaited in the second round, and Northwestern used another inspired effort in the second half to claw back into the game and face a three-point deficit with just over two minutes remaining and a Sweet 16 berth on the line.
The ‘Cats went on to lose their shooting touch in the final moments of the game, but they had proved they belonged. The 2017 run wasn’t some magical fluke; it was the sign of a program being built. 2023 was the exclamation point on Northwestern’s arrival out of the basement. They were a competitive, easy-to-root-for team from start to finish and made all Northwestern fans proud to be Wildcats.
