CHICAGO — Nick Martinelli rested his head on his coach’s shoulder. Tears streamed down the senior forward’s face as Chris Collins held him up.
Walking down the tunnel, they were still flowing, after most of the team had already hastily jogged past the next team’s blaring pregame music.
It was over.
“This is my home,” Martinelli said. “It’s been such a blessing and an honor.”
In No. 15-seeded Northwestern’s season-ending 81-68 Big Ten Tournament loss to No. 7 Purdue, it looked a lot like it had early in the year, amidst a 2-13 start to conference play, with Martinelli carrying the load while his teammates delivered little support.
If it were earlier in the season, Martinelli might have urged his teammates to up their buy-in, as he had done previously.
But now was time for reflection on his prolific collegiate career.
“For (the) young guys that are coming in (and) every person that played with me,” Martinelli said, “hopefully, they look at a guy that worked relentlessly.”
Martinelli, the four-year Wildcat (15-19, 5-15 Big Ten), started the game 4-for-4, while the rest of the team began 2-for-9 as Purdue built a quick 31-13 lead that the ’Cats wouldn’t come close to touching.
Boilermaker (24-8, 13-7 Big Ten) center Oscar Cluff punished the ’Cats inside with 19 points and forward Trey Kaufman-Renn netted floater after floater for another 19 points. Guard Braden Smith did his usual thing with 16 assists.
Purdue comprehensively outmuscled the ’Cats, who played without junior center Arrinten Page for the fourth straight game, as they won the rebounding battle 35-23.
NU scored just 21 points in the first half before its offense got rolling with a 62.1% shooting effort in the second half. Junior guard Jayden Reid scored 17 of his 19 points in that period as he drained 3-of-4 triples.
After enjoying a five wins in seven games stretch, including Big Ten Tournament victories over No. 18-seeded Penn State and No. 10-seeded Indiana, Collins said the ‘Cats had expended a lot of energy and emotion to get here.
The ending felt abrupt, he added.
“I get up this morning, and (I’m) ready to roll,” Collins said. “You’ve got this big game against Purdue, and now it’s over.
Freshman guard Jake West, who scored 18 points in a “coming of age” Wednesday, airballed a 3-pointer as NU took a 24-point deficit into halftime. He finished the evening with two points on 1-for-4 shooting.
Freshman forward Tre Singleton, who appeared fearless the previous day, had already picked up his fourth foul just a few minutes into the second half and only attempted one shot all night.
Once again outnumbered by opposing fans in a city that NU claims as its own, the ’Cats were overpowered by a team that hadn’t played since Saturday, while they were taking the floor in their third contests in three days.
“We did our best,” Collins said. “No excuses. We tried to prepare, get ready and Purdue did what they’re supposed to do. Their energy, their pop, they came out and hit us with a haymaker early.”
The season hadn’t gone the way NU had wanted, starting conference play 0-7 after attempting to play with deeper, faster rotations. Throughout the season, the team couldn’t live up to the standard it set with back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances in 2023 and 2024, seemingly demoralized by tight early defeats to the likes of Virginia, now ranked No. 10 in the country.
Later in the year, NU fell by 40 to then-No. 5 Illinois, but also blew a 16-point lead to then-No. 2 Michigan and lost after being up 11 points to then-No. 15 Purdue.
It closed the regular season 3-2 behind more cohesive performances from the team’s young talent, finishing off close games against Maryland, Oregon and Indiana.
But there was a reason they were in this place.
“We’ve got to be better,” Collins said. “We weren’t good enough this year.”
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