History will not remember the 2019-20 Northwestern Wildcats men’s basketball team as a great team. Or a good one. Or merely competitive.
For a basketball program that never made March Madness before 2017, expectations are not perennially sky-high. But the 2019-20 season was as close as it has gotten to rock bottom in the past decade. Northwestern won three of their 20 Big Ten games, including a 12-game skid that winter, and lost so early in the Big Ten tournament that they did not have a single game cancelled by the pandemic (a distinction only the teams that lost in the opening round of the bracket share).
Losses to Hartford and Merrimack — teams barely at the Division 1 level, let alone the Big Ten — rang the alarm bells early, and the Wildcats never recovered. Opposing fans often crowded the brand-new Welsh-Ryan Arena, while the student sections, a key advantage in ensuing seasons to the point websites crashed trying to distribute game tickets, sometimes seemed more interested in their homework than the action. An intra-team scrimmage before the Northwestern-Ohio State football game in October 2019 might have been the most highly-anticipated matchup.
The standings and game logs depict a rough chapter in Northwestern basketball, but as it turns out, the Wildcats did not let that chapter define their respective stories.
Northwestern lost and lost and lost that winter, but they learned a lot, too. Guard Boo Buie, a freshman on that year’s team, stuck around Evanston for five seasons and became the program’s all-time leading scorer. The Wildcats themselves rose from the ashes and made March Madness for the third and fourth times in school history in the 2023 and 2024 seasons, with head coach Chris Collins leading the way. Pete Nance, Miller Kopp and Ryan Young saw plenty of playing time in Wildcat purple in 2019-20 but later became key contributors for storied programs in UNC, Indiana and Duke, respectively.
And then there’s Pat Spencer, the graduate transfer and former college lacrosse superstar who filled the role as floor general for the 2019-20 Wildcats in his first and only college basketball season. Turn on the NBA playoffs, and Spencer, now wearing No. 61, is playing for the Golden State Warriors and earning the praise of all-time players in teammates Draymond Green and Steph Curry.
The 2019-20 Wildcats didn’t allow their failures to dictate their basketball careers, and in doing so, the legacy of that squad has become one of resilience, rather than failure. An 8-23 record overall and 3-17 mark in Big Ten games gives a clear picture of the product the Wildcats put on the court, but what came after — whether in the ACC, international basketball leagues or the NBA — has been nothing short of an inspiration.
Northwestern entered the 2019-20 season expected to finish last in the Big Ten, largely because of the squad’s relative youth compared to the rest of their conference. The Big Ten was so competitive that year that three teams, Maryland, Michigan State and Wisconsin, shared the league’s regular season championship with 14 conference wins each, while six teams finished in the AP’s Top 25. The Wildcats had talent, such as point guard Boo Buie and sharpshooter Miller Kopp, but the objective in 2019-20 seemed to be to play the young guys as much as possible, give them valuable experience through the trial by fire and show signs of promise for the future. It’s difficult to win games when your team is younger, smaller, less refined and worse at shooting than almost all of your opponents.
The Wildcats ran into adversity even before their first Big Ten game tipped off. Northwestern opened November with a shocking loss to tiny Merrimack College, then dropped another non-conference game to the Radford Highlanders, also by a double-digit point margin. December had a more promising start, with a definitive win over Boston College, but ended on a baffling, one-point loss to Hartford in Welsh-Ryan Arena to fall to 5-7.
Northwestern’s fortunes didn’t improve when the calendar turned to 2020. Two of the Wildcats’ three wins came against the actual worst team in the conference, Nebraska, and a 12-game losing streak kept the Cats winless from the back half of January through the entirety of February. Buie erupted for 26 points against Michigan State but missed significant time with a high ankle sprain, while Pete Nance was in and out of the lineup due to his inconsistent performance. Northwestern ranked last in the 14-team Big Ten in points scored per game (64.9) and last in rebounds per game (33.7) and was in the bottom three in points allowed per game (70.1) and field goal percentage (41.6 percent). Only one player, forward Miller Kopp, registered more than 11 points per game.
The season’s high point came during Northwestern’s Senior Day, a rare reprieve from the losing and a reward for the Wildcats’ efforts. Reserve guard Tino Malnati, the last remaining member of the 2016-17 team that made March Madness for the first time in Northwestern men’s basketball history, signed Malnati’s deep dish pizza boxes before the game and received a starting nod. Like Malnati in his limited minutes, the Wildcats were feisty in Welsh-Ryan Arena against No. 20 Penn State. Northwestern powered past the Nittany Lions in a too-good-to-be-true second half performance en route to an 80-69 victory in the regular season finale. A week later, Minnesota routed the Wildcats to mercifully end their season by a 74-57 score.
That season was my first time covering a Northwestern sports beat from start to finish for the Daily Northwestern. The winter was grueling, and finding ways to add new twists and avoid writing the same story after every loss was a challenge. Head coach Chris Collins did an admirable job staying even-keeled in press conferences and keeping an optimistic, forward-facing outlook, but a 3-17 making the jump to contention any time soon felt like a step too far. Even more than the pandemic-impacted 2020-21 season, in which the Cats played in empty arenas and improved to six conference wins, the 2019-20 winter knocked the wind out of Northwestern basketball. But the failures didn’t stop them from fighting onward.
The Wildcats’ paths diverged over the next five years, but sure enough, the strategy to play underclassmen and stay the course paid off, both for individual players and the program. Northwestern won six Big Ten games in 2020-21, then boosted that figure to seven in 2021-22. New athletic director Derrick Gragg reiterated his belief in Chris Collins heading into the following season despite the transfers of Kopp, Young and Nance, and the Wildcats’ efforts finally bore fruit.
Northwestern shot from 12th in the Big Ten to second and won five more games in Big Ten play. A court-storming upset of then-No. 1 Purdue signaled that the Wildcats were legitimate postseason contenders, and Northwestern snuck into the Top 25 in February. Buie fulfilled his promise and led the Cats with 17.3 points per game and 4.5 assists per game, while guard Chase Audige, a transfer from William and Mary who practiced with the 2019-20 team, blossomed into one of the best defensive players in the conference.
To the shock of many who had witnessed the past winters of Northwestern basketball, the Wildcats punched their ticket to March Madness, then knocked off Boise State once they were there. The next year, Northwestern replicated the feat, returning to the Big Dance and defeating Florida Atlantic in overtime in its first matchup. The complete turnaround underscored the vision and composure of Chris Collins through the ups and the downs and the progression of Buie from overmatched freshman to the leading scorer in Northwestern history.
Other members of the 2019-20 season left by the time Northwestern made its March Madness runs but found success elsewhere. Forward Pete Nance rededicated himself to the game during the pandemic — even playing on his childhood hoop — and evolved into the Wildcats best player over the next two seasons. For his final collegiate season, he took his talents to Chapel Hill and started 30 games for the Tar Heels. Nance has followed his father Larry Sr. and brother Larry Jr. to the pros and has played in 21 NBA games.
Big man Ryan Young competed in two March Madness tournaments with the Duke Blue Devils (including one Elite Eight appearance), and forward Miller Kopp, the best player on the 2019-20 squad, accomplished the same feat at conference rival Indiana. Audige, Buie and forward Robbie Beran have also continued their basketball journeys, whether in international matchups or facing off against each other in the G-League.
Each of those paths out of the slog of the 2019-20 season to postseason glory is a testament to a rare combination of dedication, reinvention and perseverance that should not be lost to history. The best example, though, is playing out on a national stage in the NBA playoffs.
Pat Spencer came to Northwestern as the team’s most unbelievable story. The first overall pick in the 2019 Premier League Lacrosse draft and the Tewaaraton Award winner for best college lacrosse player, Spencer instead chose to play Big Ten basketball at Northwestern as a graduate transfer — despite not playing the sport since high school. Spencer was one of three Wildcats to average in the double digits for points per game and started 29 of 31 games, but his athleticism and leadership did little to boost Northwestern into contention.
After departing from Evanston, Spencer refused to shut down his basketball dreams. Over the next couple seasons, the 6-foot-3 guard appeared in international and G-League games, determined to make an impression and sustain a professional basketball career. In 2024, the Golden State Warriors signed Spencer to a two-way contract after taking note of his performances for their affiliate, the Santa Cruz Warriors. Spencer played in just six games for the rest of the 2023-24 season but carved out a more impactful role in his second year in the Association, with 39 games played in the 2024-25 regular season.
That role afforded Spencer the opportunity to play in NBA playoff basketball, a mind-blowing jump from the G-League circuit, Welsh-Ryan Arena court and lacrosse field (he claims it’s no surprise to him). Spencer hasn’t let the opportunity slip him by. He tallied 11 points off the bench in the second and fifth games of the Warriors’ first-round playoff series against the Houston Rockets and has earned time off the bench against the Minnesota Timberwolves. A fearless drive to the basket against Minnesota’s Julius Randle was enough to get Warriors fans — and Northwestern supporters — riled up for the athletic reserve.
In sports, the most prominent stories are about the most dominant teams, understandably. As I learned as a beat reporter for a 3-17 basketball team (and a 1-11 football team, after that), bad teams can be hard to watch and a footnote in the larger narratives of their leagues. Northwestern basketball may wear purple jerseys, but the program will never get a fraction of the airtime on ESPN’s First Take debate show as the Los Angeles Lakers (despite all of the Medill alumni at ESPN).
Still, the most compelling stories, whether in sports or in life, are forged through adversity. 2019-20 Northwestern basketball had plenty of that. The program’s coaches and players refused to let that chilly winter to define them or write the closing chapters to their basketball journeys, and they’ve reaped the rewards.
Little did I know as a college freshman that I’d still be typing up articles about the 2019-20 Northwestern Wildcats five years later. Thankfully, they’ve never allowed their basketball stories to end.
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