Northwestern has gotten off to a rough start in 2025.

The league schedule makers didn’t make it easy on the Wildcats, sticking them with two road games after the New Year.

First, they went to State College, Pa., and dropped a tight one to Penn State, 84-80, in a game that was decided in the final seconds and became infamous on social media because the Nittany Lions shot 45 free throws, more than double the Cats’ 21.

Then, they went to Mackey Arena, the toughest place to play in the Big Ten according to Northwestern head coach Chris Collins, and got drubbed by No. 20 Purdue, 79-61, in a contest that was over by halftime.

Now, they come back home to face Michigan State on Sunday and then Maryland the following Thursday to try and get back on track.

The Wildcats are a disappointing but understandable 1-3 in Big Ten play. Their three losses came on the road, and their one win was at Welsh-Ryan Arena over then-No. 19 Illinois, a victory that’s looking better and better as the Illini climb in the rankings.

Northwestern has been in this spot, coming off of consecutive Big Ten losses, plenty of times before. And they’ve shown, time and again, that they can bounce back after difficult defeats.

Last year, the Wildcats’ NCAA Tournament team lost two games in a row twice in Big Ten play. They came back to win the next game both times. That team never lost more than two straight games all season.

The year before, the Wildcats’ 2023 Big Dance entrant dropped two consecutive Big Ten games three separate times. The first time, they won the next two games. The second time, they ripped off five straight wins, including a stunning upset of Purdue for the program’s first-ever win over a No. 1 team. Only once did they drop a third straight, at the end of the season, for their only three-game losing streak over the last two and a half seasons.

Still, the loss to Purdue was demoralizing because the Wildcats got outclassed. They looked a step slow and fell behind by 23 points by the break. The Boilermakers’ lead ballooned to 29 in the second half before NU chipped away in garbage time to get the final deficit under 20.

Northwestern has rebounded from plenty of blowouts, too. Just last year, the Wildcats opened January with a brutal 30-point loss at No. 9 Illinois. They came back the next game to beat Michigan State in Evanston – ironically, the same team they face in the same venue on Sunday – and won two straight.

In 2023, Northwestern’s first game in January was a lackluster 73-56 home loss to a mediocre Ohio State team. They won their next two from there, beating Illinois at home and going on the road to knock off No. 15 Indiana, 84-83.

Purdue, however, exposed some of Northwestern’s weaknesses. The Boilers were very effective in getting the ball out of the hands of the Wildcats’ dynamic duo early in their possessions and the Wildcat offense just fell apart. They had just 18 points and seven made baskets at halftime.

Brooks Barnhizer and Nick Martinelli came to West Lafayette averaging a combined 40 points per game as the only pair of teammates in the country averaging 20 points apiece. But they finished with just 21 points combined, half of their typical output, and it took them a highly inefficient 23 shots to do it.

Martinelli, the second-leading scorer in the Big Ten, didn’t tally any points until the 14:59 mark of the second half. That’s the kind of day it was for the Wildcats, who struggled to generate anything offensively in by far their worst performance of the season.

“You know, what happened was they were making Brooks and Nick pass the ball early and we weren’t able to capitalize with our other guys,” said Collins. “I know [Jalen] Leach hit a couple, but then what happened was [Barnhizer and Martinelli] tried to do too much.

“I thought that really happened with Brooks. I thought he got a little bit sped up he was trying to take three and four guys on, and that's where a lot of those turnovers came.

With the offense stagnating, Barnhizer was putting his head down and taking wild drives to the basket to try and generate a spark, despite being outnumbered. He finished with eight turnovers, more than half the team’s total of 13.

While other Big Ten teams are sure to try the same defensive strategy against the Wildcats, not everyone has the kind of personnel to execute that game plan like the Boilers do.

“You don't realize there's also a really good team that kind of makes you play that poorly,” said Collins. “They had a good game plan, they’re physical and they have veteran guys.”

Plus, Collins now has a week off to figure out a way to make teams pay for double- and even triple-teaming their big two. The solution starts with Ty Berry.

Leach scored 11 points against the Boilers and has had 19 during this two-game losing streak. He was just about the only thing the Wildcats had going offensively in the first half at Mackey. Northwestern big men Matt Nicholson and Luke Hunger just are not going to provide much offense. The bench, in particular Angelo Ciaravino, has shown some promise.

But Berry, a fifth-year senior, has been conspicuously quiet. Almost non-existent. He went scoreless against the Boilers and tallied just three points against the Nittany Lions. He’s 1-for-9 shooting over the last two games while playing just 27 minutes. He got into foul trouble against Penn State, but he took only three shots against Purdue, even when the Boilers were swarming Barnhizer and Martinelli like ants on a popsicle stick.

If Berry doesn’t pick up the slack, he could see more of his minutes go to Ciaravino, who had a career- and team-high 19 points against the Boilers. Collins called him “the bright spot” in otherwise dreary effort.

Another key will be getting to the foul line. The disparity in foul shots between Northwestern and Penn State is well-documented. The Boilermakers also had an 18-12 edge in free throws. The Wildcats need to find a way to get some easy points at the stripe when the offense is stuck in neutral.

Martinelli took seven of NU’s free throws, but Barnhizer took just two. He also had just three against Penn State. It would be one thing if Barnhizer was just a jump-shooter, but he’s a slasher who gets a lot of his points around the rim on drives into the lane. He’s also a first-team All-Big Ten kind of player averaging 19.3 points per game who should draw more whistles than he does.

Collins thinks that his star should be getting to the line more often.

“Brooks and Nick, you know, are really physical drivers and I got to really examine the film,” he said. “That's two games in a row where Brooks, he gets three free throws the other night and [Penn State’s] best player [Ace Baldwin Jr.] the other night gets 16 on hand checks.

“Tonight again, he gets two free throws and he's driving the ball, and again…I’ve got to figure that out because we’ve got to find ways to get to the line and get some easy baskets.”

After a poor effort against Purdue, Northwestern needs to come out like gangbusters back home. As Collins continuously says, the key to success in the Big Ten is winning at home and then finding a way to snatch a few on the roads.

The Wildcats have been pretty good applying that formula in recent years. They went 28-7 at home over the last two seasons and are already 8-0 this season, with one Big Ten win already on the books.

“We’ve got to go home, we’ve got to fix some things, we got to be better and try to find a way to get a win,” said Collins.