By: Charlie Perlman, NUSports.com<\/p>\n
Sullivan-Ubben Head Men’s Basketball Coach Chris Collins<\/a>, junior Angelo Ciaravino<\/a> and sophomore Jake West<\/a> represented Northwestern at Big Ten Men’s Basketball Media Day on Thursday, Oct. 8, at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont.<\/p>\n The Wildcats will kick off the 2026-27 season with a pair of exhibitions. The first is on the road against Illinois State on Doug Collins Court on Sunday, Oct. 18. Following that matchup, Northwestern will return to Welsh-Ryan Arena for a Power 4 tilt with Iowa State on Sunday, Oct. 25 at 12 p.m. CT.<\/p>\n Northwestern’s regular season will begin at home on Nov. 2 at 7 p.m. CT against Binghamton.<\/p>\n Here are four takeaways from the Wildcats’ Media Day.<\/p>\n 1. Returners stepping into leadership roles<\/p>\n Northwestern enters the 2026-27 season with only three returning players: Ciaravino, West and sophomore Phoenix Gill<\/a>. The roster turnover leaves an opportunity for the returning Wildcats to take on bigger roles both on and off the court.<\/p>\n For Ciaravino, learning under program leaders like Brooks Barnhizer<\/a> and Nick Martinelli<\/a> has prepared him to help guide a roster that features 11 newcomers.<\/p>\n \u201cThe three returners just have to step up and show all the new guys the way and show what Northwestern’s about,\u201d Ciaravino said. \u201cThey’ve been super willing to just be open to everything that we’ve been saying to them and what the coaches have been saying to them, and it’s been great all around.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the returners Collins is leaning on most is West. After playing sporadically throughout the beginning of his freshman season, West took the conference by storm during the second half of the season, helping the \u2018Cats win five of their last seven games.<\/p>\n For a program defined in part by point guard leaders like Bryant McIntosh<\/a> and Boo Buie<\/a>, Collins sees no reason why West can’t be the next on that list.<\/p>\n \u201cI want him to be the head of the snake,\u201d Collins said. \u201cHe’s going to be the one with the ball. We need his voice in huddles. We need his voice commanding because all of our guys look up to him, and you know he’s going to be the one leading the way. There\u2019s no question.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By: Charlie Perlman, NUSports.com Sullivan-Ubben Head Men’s Basketball Coach Chris Collins, junior Angelo Ciaravino and sophomore Jake West…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":921162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-921161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=921161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/921162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=921161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=921161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=921161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}