Northwestern's 2023-24 campaign started with an 85-63 exhibition win over McKendree at Welsh-Ryan Arena on Wednesday night.

Brooks Barnhizer led all scorers with 29 points and it was a good night for the transfer guards. Justin Mullins, a sophomore from Denver, was the second leading scorer with 14. Ryan Langborg, a graduate transfer from Princeton, was third with 13.

For the visiting Bearcats, stretch center Milos Vicentic was their high scorer with 19 points on 7-for-11 shooting.

Here are our takeaways from the 2023 exhibition matchup:

Collins' rotation was head scratching: No one told head coach Chris Collins that this was an exhibition. Boo Buie, Ty Berry and Brooks Barnhizer started the game and headed into the locker room for the half in almost one fluid stretch. Barnhizer and Berry logged 20 minutes, Buie 19.

Barnhizer finished with 38, Berry with 36 and Buie with 29.

"That's who we had," Collins said, referencing forward Nick Martinelli and guards Jordan Clayton and Parker Strauss, who were out with injury. "We had Ryan in [foul trouble], Nick Martinelli is our backup four.

"Unfortunately that's how it was, we had limited subs tonight."

Those players aren’t strangers to plenty of minutes: they were three of the four highest players in terms of minutes per game last season. But if this is any indicator of what the regular-season rotation will look like, it's alarming.

Berry started 2-for-3 from three and finished the half 2-for-9. He's a senior with plenty of miles who should have worked through such slumps by now, but it's still a substantial ask for a shooter to keep their legs in 20 straight minutes of play.

Buie can do it, but I don't need to tell you that Buie is an outlier-caliber player who should be the exception, not the rule.

Collins secured a 22-point win in their first game in front of fans but it exacted a puzzling physical toll on some of his best players. Hindsight is 20-20, and it's always important to avoid embarrassment or a scare in these games, but it seems overwhelmingly possible to have achieved the necessary result without pushing the rotation.

Freshman Blake Barkley played two minutes. Sophomore Luke Hunger, who saw his first action since a foot injury last Dec. 20, played eight minutes.

"We're going to play the lineups we're going to play in games," Collins said. "That was needed, unfortunately, tonight, because of injury."

Even if they never see the light of day again, it's an exhibition game. Collins should have gone to a double-big lineup with Blake Preston and Matt Nicholson, or gone deep earlier to Barkley and walkon Blake Smith.

The Wildcats made a statement but missed a developmental opportunity while stretching the stamina of their starters unnecessarily.

Barnhizer appears to have made the leap: With Chase Audige on to the G League, it's on Barnhizer to pick up some of the offensive and defensive slack. It's just an exhibition, but he delivered, leading the game with 29 points, seven rebounds, five steals and four blocks.

"We scrimmaged Iowa State and our defense was not very good, especially mine," he said. "The coaches came to me and were like 'You're a captain, you're a leader of the team, you have to pick it up on that end.'

"I think that's what led to the offense kind of being good was I went out there worried about my defense."

On a team featuring preseason All-American Buie, Barnhizer looked like the best player on the floor. He scored at all three levels, finishing through contact, draining fallaways and hitting all four of his attempted threes.

If this is the Barnhizer that Northwestern is going to get in the regular season then watch out. The departed Chase Audige was a streaky scorer last season, occasionally capturing lightning in a bottle to alleviate the defense's myopic focus on Buie.

But Barnhizer flashed a different dynamic tonight. It was cold, calculated, reliable execution in the half-court, combined with an electric ferocity on defense.

Northwestern defense still delivers: McKendree shot better than Northwestern from three and the free throw line, and shot just 2% worse from the floor, yet lost by 22. What created that margin? You guessed it, turnovers.

Northwestern forced 20 turnovers, creating 29 points, while turning ball over just three times themselves.

The Wildcats were notorious for winning the turnover battle last season, preying on passing lanes while making the right call themselves. More of their deflections and steals came within the arc than last year, with fewer jumped lanes and more poke-outs, but the effect was still the same.

One area of concern was the perimeter, where Vicentic pulled Nicholson away from the basket and drained five of his seven attempts beyond the arc. Small-ball or shooting fives are few and far between in the Big Ten, but Collins affirmed it was still a concerning trend.

"That's why you want to play a pretty good team," he said about McKendree. "It does no good to not play a team that's going to expose you a little bit, on some of your weaknesses."

Collins elaborated about Nicholson's specific place in guarding perimeter bigs.

"There's no doubt about it [it's a concern]," he said. "Especially some of these early teams that are undersized. This was a good matchup for him and Blake to work on that.

"In our league, you don't get a ton of it. You get some of it with big guys that can pick-and-pop, and get out on the floor. Games like this are great teaching points."

Shooting was improved: Last season the Wildcats shot an anemic 32.1% from three. Tonight, that number leapt to 39%.

Key contributors were Barnhizer, 4-for-4, and Langborg, 3-for-7, as well as Berry with a pyrrhic 3-for-11 contribution to tie for second most makes.

"I think we had 25 assists to three turnovers," Langborg said about the shooting bump. "When you get wide-open ones, we're going to hit some shots."

Collins' take on the difference veered more towards personnel.

"I feel like with those four guys on the floor, you know: Boo, Ty, Ryan and Brooks, you have all guys that can get in gaps and create help...

"They're all pretty good shooters, and I think Ryan is elite when he gets his feet set... Hopefully, the shooting will be a little bit better than some of those nights we had last year."