Will the last basketball player leaving Evanston please turn off the lights?
On Tuesday, for the third time in five days, a Wildcat announced that he was leaving Northwestern as a graduate transfer. For those keeping score at home – and that’s getting harder and harder – Aaron Falzon went first last Friday, Jordan Ash followed him out the door on Monday, and Barret Benson is the latest to leave, announcing his decision on Tuesday.
The ironic thing is that all three players’ tweets looked remarkably similar, with a photo montage on the left and the message, in the same all-caps font, on the right. It’s like the basketball program has an official transfer Twitter template. Leaving the program? Here, use this to tweet it out.
The truth is, Falzon’s and Ash’s decisions to leave weren’t surprising. Benson’s, however, qualifies as a shocker. He was expected to be a starter this season, and his decision, one source told WildcatReport, stunned even head coach Chris Collins.
All three players will have their Northwestern degrees by the end of the semester and will be play their final year of eligibility at another school. Falzon and Ash will get their degrees after four years; Benson, who worked as hard off the court as he did on it, will graduate in three.
Falzon and Ash were honored on senior day, before Northwestern’s final home game against Purdue on March 10, so fans figured they were on their way out. They also had very similar experiences over the last couple years, spending a lot of time on the bench with injuries. Falzon, limited by an ankle injury, played in 17 games this season; Ash, with a balky knee, played in just 10 and was declared out for the year in January. In fact, the two were in the lineup together for just one game: the Wildcats’ 88-46 demolition of Chicago State on Dec. 17.
Neither player figured to get many minutes next season as Collins has little choice but to rebuild what will be a decimated roster. He’ll opt to play and develop younger players rather than give precious minutes to fifth-year seniors on their way out.
Benson’s exodus is another story. After all, Benson was going to step into the starting center role now that program stalwart Dererk Pardon is graduating. After three years as Pardon’s backup, he was finally going to get big minutes. And now he’s leaving?
Plus, this is Benson, after all, the happy-go-lucky, clown prince of Northwestern basketball who appeared to be the ultimate team player over the last three years and a guy that bled purple. Every time the camera caught the Sideshow Bob-coiffed Benson on the bench, he was usually clapping, cheering and high-fiving every teammate in sight.
Another source said that, for all three players, the idea of being a featured player at a lower level was appealing. That makes sense for Falzon and Ash, but not as much for Benson. Facing a rebuilding year in their final season also played a role, one observer speculated.
Next year already seemed like it was going to be a trying one for the Wildcats. Now, it looks like it could harken back to the Dark Ages. And while the short-term view is ugly, the bigger picture may be even more concerning because Collins is racking up transfers at an alarming rate.
Six of the 11 players that Collins recruited to Northwestern in his first three classes have left the program before exhausting their four years of eligibility. Losing more than half of your players in a three-year cycle simply isn’t sustainable for any college program – outside of maybe Duke and Kentucky. But Northwestern, unlike those blue bloods, aren’t losing players to the NBA.
Take a look at attrition rate from the 2014-16 classes.
Vassar, a 2014 recruit, played just one year at Northwestern before getting into a brutal tug-of-war with Collins. The coach kicked him off the team and reportedly wanted him to leave school, but Vassar wouldn’t withdraw from NU and spent three more years on campus to get his degree, leaving Collins a scholarship down for those seasons.
Pardon is the only one of three members of the 2015 class to stay for four years. At least Falzon’s and Ash’s transfers came after four years in the program, so one could argue that the Wildcats got enough bang for their buck in those cases.
The 2016 class is especially damaging as none of the three players will finish their careers in purple. Isiah Brown and Rapolas Ivanauskas left after two years, and now Benson after three.
For 2015 and 2016, the Wildcats retained just one player out of six: Dererk Pardon is the only one who played four years for the Wildcats. Collins’ 2017 and 2018 classes have remained intact, but that’s only after two and one years, respectively.
One source said that the NU staff is chalking this up to a remarkably unlucky coincidence. They had three grad transfers and, unfortunately for them, they all left at the same time. Whether that’s spin or not is open to interpretation.
Injuries have certainly played roles in many of these transfer cases, as well. Falzon and Ash missed almost two full years apiece. Ivanauskas played in just three games in two years as shoulder labrum surgeries prevented him from even practicing. He transferred to Colgate and was named the Patriot League player of the year in leading the Raiders to the NCAA Tournament this season. While his success seemed to rub salt in NU’s wounds, at least Collins got to use that scholarship.
The coach, who just completed his sixth season at Northwestern, is going to have to use quite a few more of those scholarships, too. And quickly.
Right now, Northwestern has just six returning scholarship players: senior AJ Turner; junior Anthony Gaines; sophomores Miller Kopp, Pete Nance and Ryan Greer; and redshirt freshman Ryan Young. They also have three incoming freshmen: four-star forward Robbie Beran, the No. 100 recruit in the nation, and guard Boo Buie and forward Jared Jones, both three-stars.
That leaves four open scholarship slots, a big number for March. Expect Northwestern to be very aggressive in the grad transfer market, and Collins could also try to get a 2020 recruit to reclassify to 2019 and start college a year early, as Greer did for the Wildcats this season.
But Northwestern doesn’t want to have to rely so heavily on grad transfers. Grad transfers are better suited for finishing touches, not glaring needs.
Look at Ryan Taylor as Exhibit A. One of the biggest prizes nationally among grad transfers last year, Taylor was a disappointment for the Wildcats this season, averaging 9.8 points per game, less than half he averaged the year before at Evansville, where he led the Missouri Valley Conference in scoring. Before Taylor, Collins didn’t have much success with grad transfer big men Jeremiah Kreisberg or Joey Van Zegeren, either.
In other words, the Wildcats are in a tough spot. The players who can look at this roster carnage as an overwhelming positive are Young, Beran, Buie and Jones, who will likely play a lot more minutes than they expected to just a week ago.
One year after bringing in six new players, the Wildcats will welcome seven new faces next season. That’s more than half the roster. When the team finally convenes for the first time over the summer, Collins may want to bring name tags.
