2022 Northwestern Wildcats Season Preview

[BabaYaga]

Evanston, IL – The Northwestern Wildcats are looking to follow up their solid football season with another good showing on the court. The Wildcats have a storied history on the hardwood and will look to ride their studs to a conference title. I take a quick look at Northwestern below.

 

Projected Starters

G - Brandon Barnes - JR - C overall

G - Damian Lozano - SO - C overall

F - Miguel Valdez - SR - A overall

F - Kenneth Hughes - JR - A overall

C - Andy Niles - SR - A overall

 

Key Bench Contributors

C - Harold Banks - JR - C overall

G - Jordan Crawford - FR - D overall

 

Northwestern has three players who are going to carry this team. Their post play is the best in the country and they attack the boards hard. Their backcourt, however, is something to forget as their best players are C overalls once you look past their starting bigs. Their starting guards are very solid as they can shoot it and handle it but are going to be bad defensively. We don’t even need to talk about their reserves because they are that bad – as in one C overall and six D overall’s bad.

 

Non-Conference Schedule

Week 1A: Stanford

Week 1B: @ Cincinnati

Week 2A: Duquesne

Week 2B: Temple (Neutral)

Week 3A: @ Notre Dame (ACC-B1G Challenge)

Week 3B: Georgia Southern

Week 4A: @ North Carolina

Week 4B: Santa Clara

 

This is going to be a tough non-conference slate for Northwestern as all of the teams that they play just have more depth. It’s hard to find a team with a better Big 3, but when you can’t defend guards you’ll give up a ton of points. Look for the frontcourt for Northwestern to overpower opponents but struggle to pick up wins because their depth is so weak. Non-conference projection: Low 0-8, High 3-5.

 

Overall Thoughts

This is going to be a rough season for Northwestern. Their studs might surprise some people this season but on the whole, they should really struggle with their fourth-best player being a C overall with D defense. If Northwestern sniffs double-digit wins then they should hand their head coach a blank check for working his magic. Prediction: 4-24 (3-15 B1G)

Edited November 14, 2022 by BabaYaga