Northwestern made history on Saturday. And not the good kind.

No. 2 Michigan State came back from a 27-point first-half deficit to beat the Wildcats 65-60 at Allstate Arena. It was the largest come-from-behind win in Big Ten basketball history.

That, of course, means that Northwestern owns records for come-from-ahead losses in both major college sports. The Wildcats also lost the biggest lead in NCAA football history. In 2006, Northwestern, in the first year under head coach Pat Fitzgerald, blew a 38-3 lead midway through the third quarter and lost 41-38 to Michigan State.

(Yes, it was Michigan State both times. Maybe the Spartans should just start spotting Northwestern a lead in the future.)

While those two records form a depressing duo of defeat, bookends on a shelf that includes the titles Shoulda, Woulda and Coulda, neither rank anywhere near the top in terms of devastating Northwestern losses, in this writer’s opinion.

Both are embarrassing in their own way. Leads of 35 and 27 points should pretty much guarantee a victory, no matter what sport you’re playing, and especially at home, where both of these games were played. But neither were gut-wretching heartbreakers that Wildcat fans have become accustomed to over the years. Wildcat fans are loss connoisseurs, after all, and most will tell you that there have been plenty worse.

There were a couple similarities in the games that tempered the pain for NU fans.

First of all, neither Northwestern team was going anywhere.

Northwestern’s 2006 team finished 4-8 and 2-6 in the Big Ten, Fitzgerald’s worst record in 12 seasons at the helm in Evanston. The loss to MSU was the fifth in a row for the Wildcats, who would lose one more before notching a win and snapping the streak. The team came in reeling, losing their three previous Big Ten games, to Penn State, Wisconsin and Purdue, by 26, 32 and 21 points, respectively.

While this NU basketball team is much better than that and is still two games above .500, it’s clear that the Wildcats are not – barring a run to the Big Ten Tournament that would qualify as a Bible-level miracle – going to make the NCAA Tournament, which was not a goal but an expectation this season. The Wildcats are now 15-13 overall and 6-9 in the Big Ten. At this point, the NIT looks like a long shot, a far cry from the start of the season, when they were ranked 18th in the nation and Clark Kellogg picked them for the Final Four.

There were also positives that came out of each game.

The 2006 game was C.J. Bacher’s first start as NU’s quarterback, and he sparked a Wildcat offense that had to that point been as exciting as C-SPAN. The Wildcats scored a combined total of 26 points in their three Big Ten games to that date, so 38 points and 440 yards against MSU qualified as a nuclear event. I remember walking out of that game buoyed by the fact that Northwestern had found its quarterback and its offense. They wound up winning two of their last three games.

On Saturday, Northwestern played its best half all season and maybe in school history, given the circumstances. Remember, this was a team missing its best player, Bryant McIntosh, as well as his backup, Jordan Ash. The Wildcats dressed just eight scholarship players and were playing the AP’s second-ranked team, a Spartan squad that head coach Chris Collins thinks is the most talented in the nation.

That’s where the games differed the most, in the quality of the Spartan team on the other side.

The 2006 Michigan State team was in no way a heavyweight. The Spartans finished 4-8 that year, same as Northwestern, and just 1-7 in the Big Ten. In fact, the historic comeback was head coach John L. Smith’s last win on the MSU sideline; he was fired after the season. MSU came in with a four-game losing streak, beat Northwestern, and then lost its last four games.

So that game was one that Northwestern fans felt like the Wildcats should have won. Saturday was a different story.

The Wildcats would have been overmatched with everyone in the lineup against that MSU juggernaut, let alone the depleted roster they fielded. The fact that they lost a 27-point lead wasn’t nearly as surprising as the fact they were able to build a 27-point lead against an elite team in the first place. Even as NU’s lead ballooned to a ridiculous 43-16 in the first half and the Wildcats were hitting 3-pointers like they were layups, most long-time NU fans were waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It did in the second half, when the Wildcats made just three of 26 shots and missed 17 straight attempts during a 24-0 MSU run that turned a 21-point deficit into a 3-point lead. Northwestern’s misses ranged from 3-point bombs to layups, to shots that circled the rim to airballs. It would have been tough to beat Tom Izzo and the Michigan State coaching staff shooting like NU did in the second half.

That’s the only real anguish that Northwestern fans experienced: the knowledge that if they had hit maybe two more baskets and shot, say, a horrendous 20 percent instead of a comical 11.3 percent, the Wildcats could have won the game.

But the game wound up where everybody thought it would, with a Michigan State win. At least it was a thrill ride getting there and NU fans got 20 minutes to bask in some glory and watch social media turn purple with disbelief.

And one more thing. Two weeks after their historic loss, the 2006 Wildcats stunned 6-3 Iowa, 21-7, in Iowa City for their biggest win of the year. Maybe the Court Cats have one more surprise up their sleeves this season.