Northwestern’s Brooks Barnhizer gave it all, until there was nothing left

Brooks Barnhizer was crying. Chris Collins was crying. Northwestern’s best basketball player and his coach were in the latter’s office on a mid-January day, beginning an all-too-real, painful process of saying goodbye.

A split sesamoid bone in the senior guard’s right foot was causing him all kinds of problems — pain in the ball of the foot, stiffness and reduced mobility in the big toe, swelling and difficulty running and, especially, jumping — trouble that had begun in the offseason and recently worsened. Surgery to remove the damaged bone was an inevitability. Continuing to play might not endanger Barnhizer’s future in the sport. On the other hand, doctors had recently made clear, trying to plow through to the finish line of his final season would be a fool’s errand.

Barnhizer wasn’t going to make it there. One of the finest players in the Big Ten — one who reminded Collins so much of himself — was going to have to wave the white flag, cruel and antithetical to his nature, and call it a career.

His parents were in Evanston and on his mind in Collins’ office, too. The Wildcats — already on the ropes as far as trying to get to a third straight NCAA Tournament — had Maryland coming to Welsh-Ryan Arena that very night, January 16. Emotion filled the room.

“I want my parents to watch me one more time,” Barnhizer told Collins. “I want to play for you one more time, with the guys one more time.”

Collins’ love for Barnhizer ran deep, as the world would witness a couple of weeks later. The coach understood and couldn’t find the word “no.”

“Well, [expletive], let’s go get one,” Collins said, as Barnhizer described it to the Sun-Times.

“That moment was so beautiful,” Barnhizer said Thursday, a day before his surgery back home in Indiana, “because it sums up our relationship.”

Barnhizer’s performance in a 76-74 overtime upset against the favored Terrapins was magical. He scored 20 points, grabbed 10 rebounds, dished out five assists and added two steals and two blocks. It was his fifth 20-10-5 game of the season, more than any other player in the country at the time, and he passed 1,000 career points on a dunk, a hell of a milestone in itself.

“He’s everything I want a player to be,” Collins said afterward, the coming end still a public secret.

But no one was ready for it to end, and for four more games, it didn’t. In an overtime loss at Michigan, Barnhizer logged 42 minutes, scoring 21 with eight boards. Next, at home against Indiana, he went for 21 points, eight boards, six assists and six steals and sealed a 79-70 win with — a play that went viral — a breakaway dunk on which he held the rim too long before falling frighteningly and landing face first, tearing open his nose. What social-media commenters didn’t realize was he had a broken foot to protect.

The game after that, at Illinois, Barnhizer was pretty much useless in a lopsided defeat. Fans jeered him. Local reporters were puzzled by a rival team’s star who seemed not to show up. Barnhizer would play one more time, in a loss to Rutgers at home, before being shut down.

All Barnhizer had wanted by that point, he explained Thursday, was to “just die out there with my guys.”

After the Wildcats’ next game, a loss to Wisconsin, Collins went viral for the tearful, gutted manner in which he imparted the news that Barnhizer’s college career was over.

“I could see that it was mentally killing him,” Collins said, burying his face in a towel. “I’m sorry I’m getting emotional, but I love that kid. …

“I wish I could take on the broken foot so he could play 10 more games. I really wish I could. But that’s not how life works. It’s not always fair.”

Collins recounted the story of Barnhizer’s recruiting visit on the day Kobe Bryant — Collins’ friend — had died. The coach’s attention was divided, to say the least. Days later, Collins received a framed drawing of Bryant’s Lakers jersey by Barnhizer, whose accompanying note read, “When I saw your passion and how much you cared, that was when I knew I wanted to play for you.” It hangs in Collins’ office today.

Before Barnhizer’s final season began, he spent three months in a walking boot, the sesamoid bone already an issue. Along the way after he took the court, he had his front teeth knocked out while taking a charge from a student manager in a practice. Not long after that, wearing a retainer with false teeth, the front two were busted out of his mouth against Purdue. One thing after another, it would be.

And now it’s over.

“I’m heartbroken, of course, and struggling with that,” Barnhizer said. “I’m coming to terms with my college days having to end. But I’m excited about what comes next. I believe God doesn’t make mistakes.”

He hopes to play in the NBA. He’ll give it everything he’s got.

“These are the kind of things that turn you into a better player, a better person, a better man,” he said.

He’ll love his coach forever.

“He’s like a dad to me,” he said. “Our story’s beautiful.”

He’ll love Northwestern, too.

“I think of this place as my home,” he said, “and it’s going to be home for life.”