EVANSTON-Northwestern head coach Chris Collins dropped a bombshell after the Wildcats 75-69 loss to Wisconsin on Saturday at Welsh-Ryan Arena: star guard Brooks Barnhizer, Mr. Double-Double, is out for the season, which means his Northwestern career is over.
He didn’t play against the Badgers on Saturday. Now he will never don the purple-and-white uniform again.
An emotional head coach Chris Collins broke down crying talking about Barnhizer’s career.
“I love that kid,” he said.
The news is probably a death knell for the Wildcats’ quest of making a third straight NCAA Tournament. At 3-8 in Big Ten play and riding a three-game losing streak, those hopes were already on life support. Now, without their best player the rest of the way, they are pretty much DOA.
On Saturday, the Wildcats held a 9-point lead with 14:40 to go but wilted down the stretch and clearly missed their captain as the Badgers hit 8-of-14 3-pointers in the second half to put the game away.
Collins said that Barnhizer broke his foot in August, right before the team’s Europe trip. He had managed to play through it, and at a high level, but then reinjured the same foot against Michigan State on Jan. 12. It was a different injury this time, according to Collins.
Barnhizer “begged” Collins to play against Maryland game, and, after consulting doctors, they determined he wouldn’t risk any further injury, said Collins. Barnhizer came up with a virtuoso 20-point, 10-rebound performance, and the team decided he would be game-to-game the rest of the year.
Barnhizer wasn’t able to practice between games, and that caught up to him, as did the 36.9 minutes per game he played, more than anyone in the Big Ten besides teammate Nick Martinelli.
“The last two games, you guys saw, he was laboring more and more,” said Collins. “He not only wasn’t moving well, I could see it was mentally killing him.”
Over the last two losses, to Illinois and Rutgers, Barnhizer shot just 5-for-19 from the floor and was 1-for-12 from beyond the arc. He didn’t have the lift or explosiveness that was evident earlier in the season.
So, after Wednesday night’s loss to Rutgers, Collins and Barnhizer had a “heart-to-heart” conversation and decided to pull the plug.
“I just loved watching him play,” said Collins, openly sobbing. “He’d run through the wall for you.”
Despite the injury, Barnhizer put up some remarkable stats this season, including seven straight double-doubles, a mark believed to be the longest streak for a Wildcat in history and tied for most in the nation this season.
In the last game he’ll play as a Wildcat, the 79-72 loss to Rutgers, Barnhizer scored just 10 points. He still managed to contribute nine rebounds and six assists, but it’s on the offensive end where his injury problems showed up the most.
On top of the foot, Barnhizer has been dealing with myriad other injury issues. He got his two front teeth knocked out in practice in December, and his bridge and false teeth came flying out more than once in games. He twisted his ankle when landing after a dunk against Maryland, and then famously fell on his face after throwing one down against Indiana, opening up a gruesome cut on his nose. Collins also mentioned a wrist injury in an earlier press conference.
When healthy, and even when he was less than 100%, Barnhizer proved himself to be one of the best all-around players in the country, and in Northwestern history. He could bring the ball up and run the offense, rebound among the trees inside, defend anyone’s No. 1 scoring guard or wing, and score in bunches.
Very few people could stuff a stat sheet like No. 13. He was the Wildcats’ second-leading scorer (17.7 ppg) this season and ranked first in rebounds (8.8), assists (4.2) and steals (2.3) going into Saturday. He was also in the Top 10 in the Big Ten in all those categories, plus blocks and minutes.
He got quite a bit of notoriety as a double-double machine this season. That streak ended with a 20-point, 10-rebound performance against Maryland on Jan. 16.
In retrospect, the last time we saw the “real” Barnhizer was on Jan. 22, in a 79-70 win over Indiana, when he did it all. His 21-point, 8-rebound, 6-assist, 6-steal performance was the first time a Big Ten player put up those kinds of numbers in a conference game since at least 1996-97, according to the NU athletic department.
More than the numbers, though, Barnhizer was a warrior. He gritted his way through all the aches and pains.
“I just love ball,” is what he said more than once this season.
Looking back on his career, Barnhizer emerged as a valuable player off the bench on Northwestern’s 2023 NCAA Tournament team when he was a sophomore. He was the No. 2 to Boo Buie’s No. 1 last season, when the Wildcats made the Big Dance for the second year in a row for the first time in school history. This year, it was he and leading scorer Nick Martinelli carrying the team.
Not bad for a kid that didn’t get a single other Big Ten offer coming out of Lafayette (Ind.) Jefferson in 2021.
If you want to know who Barnhizer was, may be the best example was during Big Ten Media Days in October. I asked him about NIL, and his response was one you’d expect from a life-long gym rat who valued playing college basketball more than anything.
He said that last March, during the NCAA Tournament, Collins reassured both him and Ty Berry that the school would reward them both the next season with NIL money. He said they looked at each other incredulously.
“Coach came up to is and said, ‘After this year, we’re going to take care of you.’ We were like, ‘What? We don’t need this. We’re ready to play,’” he said.
“It’s a blessing that they’re trying to do that for us. One thing about guys in our program, we love ball. That kind of stuff is just icing on the cake. We just love this program.”
Barnhizer showed that love every time he went out onto the floor. It’s just too bad the ride had to end earlier than expected.
