Optimism reigns at Big Ten Media Days, before the grind of the season begins. So Northwestern head coach Chris Collins is excited about the upcoming campaign, even if he’s coming off of five straight losing seasons and lost two key pieces to the transfer portal.

Collins said that his team will lean heavily on his experienced senior backcourt of Boo Buie and Chase Audige this year.

“We’re gonna go as our perimeter goes,” said Collins from the podium in Minneapolis on Tuesday. “That’s where the strength of this team lies.”

Buie is entering his fourth year as the starting point guard in Evanston and averaged 14.1 points and 4.3 assists per game last season. Collins has seen improvement in Buie’s game from year-to-year and thinks that he can be an all-conference performer in 2022-23.

“We need him to put it all together and have a great senior year,” he said.

In addition to Buie and Audige, Northwestern also returns guards Julian Roper II and Ty Berry, who each started at least half of the Wildcats' games last season.

Northwestern finished 15-16 (7-13 Big Ten) last year. While Collins noted that the win total has gone up in each of the last three seasons, he said that they were disappointed with their final mark a year ago because 11 of the losses came by five points or fewer. If they had won half of those games, it could have drastically changed the Wildcats' fortunes.

“Fifteen [wins] becomes 20 or 21, and you’re playing in the tournament,” he said.

Collins feels that the experience on his roster will be an advantage for the Wildcats, especially early in the season, when other teams are still breaking in new players. The Wildcats have four returning starters in Buie, Audige, Roper and Robbie Beran, as well as five of their top seven scorers back.

While the backcourt is experienced, the frontcourt, with the exception of Beran, will be very young. The Wildcats lost leading scorer and rebounder Pete Nance (North Carolina) and key sixth man Ryan Young (Duke) to the transfer portal.

“No one replaces [Nance and Young],” said Collins.

The frontcourt players – Beran, grad transfer Tydus Verhoeven, Matt Nicholson and freshman Luke Hunger – will need to “play to their strengths” in order for the Wildcats to be competitive.

But make no mistake, the guards are going to determine what kind of season the Wildcats have this season.

“We’re gonna go as those guys can lead us,” he said.