Boo Buie lifted Northwestern to heights never seen in program history. He led the program to back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances, for the first time in team history, and a fourth-place finish in the Big Ten last season. Buie also left as Northwestern’s all-time leading scorer.
Though Buie is gone, the show still must go on. And the team knows the question hovering around the program: Can they win without Buie?
“That’s really been a rallying cry with this group,” coach Chris Collins said.
Though this will be a new iteration of the Wildcats, they still return six of their top-eight players by minutes from last season’s 22-12 team. The Wildcats are unlikely to rebuild or reload through the transfer portal each year, so developing their young talent is paramount.
“We know how to play alongside each other, and the culture we’ve built is just being tough and resilient,” senior guard Brooks Barnhizer said. “Everybody knows on the team what their role is and how every night they can help us.”
But, there’s one role that will need to be filled: Buie’s role. Success for the Wildcats hinges on how the offense morphs without Buie and his scoring (19.0 ppg last year). And right now, the team has more questions than answers.
Who will become the team’s go-to scorer? How can the Wildcats muster enough offense to stay afloat in the Big Ten? How ready are Barnhizer, junior forward Nick Martinelli and fifth-year guard Ty Berry to handle a heavier workload?
Northwestern finished ninth in scoring in the conference (72.9) with Buie, so the offense will likely drop without him.
The Wildcats added guard Jalen Leach from Fairfield in the transfer portal. Leach is a graduate student, but replacing Buie’s production is a group effort. Collins said Northwestern won’t be a school that lives in the transfer portal. Developing from within will have to be a hallmark of the program, and this year will serve as a good indicator of where the program is headed.
The Wildcats will feature more off-ball screens for Berry and a larger role for Barnhizer as they attempt to find their offensive identity.
“Boo was so good for us, and he was a backbone of what we did,” Berry said. “But it’s like a new life because everybody has to take another step. It’s allowing everybody in the summer to try to get better [at] different parts of our game.”
Collins said the point guard position is to be determined, and it’s unlikely that one player will occupy the lead guard role. Leach will get a chance, the team has experimented with freshman guard K.J. Windham handling the role and Barnhizer will take on added responsibilities this year.
But no one player can replace Buie and his dynamic scoring. He was the team’s get-out-of-jail card when possessions bogged down and they needed someone to create nothing out of something.
No transfer or returning player was going to replace Buie, but the Wildcats will have to morph into a different iteration of themselves in a post-Buie world.
“We knew in the last four minutes where the ball was going,” Collins said. “That’s a great luxury when you have a closer. Boo is the ultimate closer. That’s going to be what we’re really working on here in the preseason. When you get to those last four or five minutes, how do we close games? Who do we play through? That’s going to be the biggest adjustment because these last two years there was no question. [You] give zero the ball and let him operate.”