Northwestern Basketball All-Quarter Century Team
The 21st century has been a good one for Northwestern basketball so far.
The Wildcats got the 78-year-old NCAA Tournament monkey off their back when they finally punched a ticket to the Big Dance in 2017. They’ve been back two more times since.
After posting just eight winning seasons in the last 50 years of the 1900s, Northwestern has been better than .500 10 times in the last 25 years. More impressively, they recorded winning records in the Big Ten three times in an eight-year period (2017, 2023, 2024) after going 49 years without doing it once. They finished in a tie for second in the league in 2022-23, the program’s highest mark since 1958-59.
After decades as an also-ran, head coach Bill Carmody arrived in 2000 and proved you could win in Evanston, posting 20 wins twice and taking the Wildcats to the NIT four straight years, from 2008-09 to 2011-12.
But it was Chris Collins, an assistant from Duke hired in 2013, who finally got them to the Promised Land in 2017. The program then built a dazzling new Welsh-Ryan Arena, only to see the Cats suffer through five straight losing seasons before Collins reassembled a team that made it to March Madness in consecutive years for the first time ever in 2023 and 2024.
So let’s take a look back at the last 25 years and unveil our All-Quarter Century first team, as well as the reserves who will come off the bench.
G Bryant McIntosh (2014-18)
He may have looked like a middle schooler, but Bryant McIntosh was the boss on the floor for the Northwestern program for all four years he was a Wildcat.
Head coach Chris Collins gave him the keys as a true freshman and just let him drive the bus. He took it deep into March in 2017, when the Wildcats made the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history.
McIntosh didn’t make many spectacular plays – he wasn’t a physically gifted athlete or particularly explosive. But he always made the right decision. He knew where the ball was supposed to go, and he found a way to get it there.
No one dished out more dimes in a Wildcat uniform than No. 30. McIntosh holds the Northwestern assists record for a game (16 vs. Minnesota in 2018), a season (213 in 2015-16) and a career (700, 82 more than No. 2 Boo Buie, even though Buie played one more season). He holds the top two marks for assists in a season, and all four of his years rank in the top eight all-time. For a game, he’s got three of the top eight games with the most assists.
And even though he wasn’t known as a scorer, he could do it when he had to. In Northwestern’s first-ever game in the Big Dance, he scored a game-high 25 points and sunk the two game-winning free throws with 15 seconds left.
G Boo Buie (2019-24)
If you had to pick the Quarter Century MVP, Boo Buie would be your choice. He is the face of Northwestern basketball and arguably the best player in school history.
An overlooked recruit with just one Power Four offer, Buie turned into Northwestern’s all-time leading scorer with 2,187 points (though he had an extra year to do it because of a free COVID year). He’s also the program’s all-time leader in games (149) and minutes (4,647).
Buie wasn’t just a scorer, however. He ranks second all-time in assists (618) and ninth in steals (143).
More than any numbers, though, Buie was “the man” for the Wildcats. He ran the show, scored the points and, when the game was on the line, everyone in the building knew that Buie was getting the ball. He put the program on his back and took them to unprecedented back-to-back NCAA Tournaments in 2023 and 2024. He is the only two-time, first-team All-Big Ten selection in school history.
One day a banner with his name and No. 0 will hang from the rafters at Welsh-Ryan Arena. There should probably be a statue of him outside, too.
G/F Drew Crawford (2009-14)
Drew Crawford is probably the most talented player on this list, a 6-foot-5 wing who did it all for Northwestern.
He is the only player in school history to rank in the Top 10 in points (third, with 1,920), rebounds (seventh with 713), 3-pointers (sixth with 232) and blocks (eight with 98).
He could handle the ball, drive to the rim, pull down rebounds, hit 3s and guard the other team’s best player. He was at home in the paint or on the perimeter. Not a bad combination.
Head coach Chris Collins has said many times that his first recruiting win was convincing Crawford to stay for his final year. Crawford wound up leading Collins’ first Wildcat team in 2013-14 in points and rebounds and was just .2 off the team lead for assists.
Crawford spent most of his career as the second option to John Shurna, but he could fill it up when he needed to. He still owns two of the top six scoring games in NU history, putting up 35 against North Carolina A&T in 2009 and 34 against Creighton in 2011.
F John Shurna (2008-12)
John Shurna is here for one reason: he could fill it up. The aptly named Babyfaced Assassin was probably the best pure scorer in NU history.
Shurna ranks second all-time in scoring (2,038 points) at Northwestern, but only because Buie got five seasons while he got only four.
The 6-foot-9 Shurna had an unorthodox shooting release that was as deadly as it was funky. His 40.1% 3-point shooting mark is second all-time in school history, and he ranks third in field goals (704), and fourth in both 3-pointers made (274) and attempted (684).
He co-owns program records for both points (37) and 3-pointers (9) in a single game. And while Shurna wasn’t known as much of a defender, he somehow ranks third all-time in NU history in blocks (135).
Shurna’s final season was sensational. He set the school scoring mark, led the Big Ten in scoring (20.0 ppg), was a first-team All-Big Ten selection and got honorable mention Associated Press All-American honors.
C Dererk Pardon (2014-19)
Even though he stood just 6-foot-8, Dererk Pardon was a huge presence around the basket for the Wildcats. He was a strong rim protector and high-motor rebounder who used his massive 7-foot-3 wingspan to handle players much bigger than he was in the paint.
Pardon ranks No. 2 all-time in Northwestern history with 148 career blocks, and he has the top two performances for blocks in a single game with eight and seven, respectively.
He stands fifth all-time with 784 rebounds. He also holds the record with 22 boards in a single game, and also has both the most defensive (16) and offensive (11) rebounds in one contest.
Pardon, a two-time honorable mention All-Big Ten pick, was primarily a defender, but he had enough of an offensive game to score 28 points in his debut as a freshman, and average 14 points per contest as a senior. The Wildcats rarely ran plays for him outside of the first possession of the game; he did most of his damage with putbacks off of offensive rebounds.
Of course, Pardon also scored the most famous basket in Northwestern history on March 1, 2017. He caught a full-court length inbound pass from Nate Taphorn and banked in a jumper at the buzzer to give the Wildcats a 67-65 win over Michigan to all but sew up the school’s first-ever NCAA Tournament bid.
NORTHWESTERN’S ALL-QUARTER CENTURY FOOTBALL TEAM: Offense, Defense, Specialists
Off the bench
Those are the starting five, but we need some players to come off the bench and relieve them. We know that Collins likes to play a short bench, but with these eight guys in reserve — we went with the old NCAA scholarship limit of 13 — he might go a little deeper than usual.
G Juice Thompson (2007-11): The 5-foot-10 point guard ran the show for all four of his seasons and ranks in the Top 5 in points, assists and 3-pointers.
G Chase Audige (2020-23): The transfer from William & Mary was named the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year in 2023, when he helped the Cats to the Big Dance.
G Craig Moore (2005-09): We need a shooter off the bench, so we’ll take the guy who made 320 of them, more than any Wildcat in history.
G/F Vic Law (2014-19): A great athlete, Law could play above the rim or outside the arc and lock up any player defensively.
G/F Brooks Barnhizer (2021-25): The embodiment of a “positionless player”, Barnhizer put up 17.1 points, 8.8 rebounds and 4.2 assists per game this year before his season was cut short by injury.
F Vedran Vukusic (2001-06): The often overlooked 6-foot-8 Croatian still ranks ninth all-time in scoring and was the No. 2 scorer in the Big Ten in 2006 with 19.0 points per game.
F Nick Martinelli (2021-present): This past season was the unorthodox lefty’s only full season as a starter, but what a year it was as he led the Big Ten in scoring with 20.5 points per game. Wait till next year.
C Alex Olah (2012-16): The burly 7-foot Romanian is the top shot blocker in Northwestern history with 181 as he turned himself into a force at the rim.
