Northwestern-Washington tale of teams walking down similar paths

Field Level Media|published: Sat 31st January, 01:17 2026

NCAA Basketball: Penn State at Northwestern

Jan 29, 2026; Evanston, Illinois, USA; Northwestern Wildcats forward Nick Martinelli (2) high fives fans after scoring against the Penn State Nittany Lions during the second half at Welsh-Ryan Arena. Mandatory Credit: David Banks-Imagn Images

The men's basketball seasons for Washington and Northwestern have been nearly mirror images of each other.

Right down to the color purple on their uniforms.

Both the Huskies (11-10, 3-7 Big Ten) and Wildcats (10-11, 2-8) have endured multiple narrow losses heading into their Saturday matchup at Evanston, Ill.

But they did diverge Thursday night.

While Washington was taking a 75-66 loss at No. 9 Illinois, Northwestern was putting a 94-73 beatdown on visiting Penn State.

"That was a huge win for us, coming off the West Coast trip where we played pretty well last week," Wildcats coach Chris Collins said. "I knew both teams were going to be hungry. I just kept telling my team that whatever team was going to start getting a few stops was going to win."

Nick Martinelli, who leads the nation with an average of 24 points per game, matched his career high with 34 on 13-of-19 shooting from the field. Tre Singleton added 17 points and a career-best 18 rebounds, and Angelo Ciaravino scored a career-high 20 off the bench.

The Wildcats have won two of their past three games after getting their first conference victory last week 74-68 at Southern California.

"Regardless of wins, losses, I've just felt better about the way we've approached ourselves heading into these games," Collins said.

The Huskies snapped a three-game skid with a 72-57 victory against rival Oregon on Sunday, but they couldn't keep up with the Fighting Illini despite Hannes Steinbach's 15 points and 12 rebounds. The freshman forward leads the Big Ten with 13 double-doubles this season.

"Northwestern is playing great basketball," Huskies coach Danny Sprinkle said. "I know they beat Penn State (Thursday), they had a big road win at USC the other night, they played UCLA tough. They are getting better and better, just like we are.

"Sometimes, the results ... their record doesn't show how good of a team they are. They are very disciplined. They are great offensively, and they make it grimy defensively. We're going to continue to get better and learn from some of the mistakes we made (at Illinois)."

--Field Level Media