A brutal way to go out won’t overshadow Captain Brooks’ impact on Northwestern basketball.
Growing up as a sports fan, you start by picking a team. Then, you fall in love with the players on that team. They’re superhuman when you’re young. You defend them tooth and nail in the hallways at school when your buddy questions their jump shot. You wear their jersey whenever your mom allows it and frantically get your homework done after school so you can watch them play that night. We start with a team, but early on, the name on the back of the jersey feels just as important as the name on the front.
Then, you get older. You watch more players come through your system and play for your team. At the same time, the magic of being a little kid watching titans starts to wear off. All of a sudden, the front of the jersey starts to matter a lot more.
However, there’s one final stage where sports fans get to feel that way again, one four-year reprieve from the whittling away of that magic: College. In an instant, you feel that connection to the players again. It’s different, sure. They don’t seem like titans anymore, but they do something far more powerful. They represent your school. You find yourself riding and dying with those players who are there for your four years.
At Northwestern, this is how we all feel about Brooks Barnhizer. And the sudden news that he’s likely played his final game at the university due to injury is gutting. Check that, it’s heartbreaking.
If Boo Buie was the shining star that brought this program relevancy, then Brooks Barnhizer was the engine under the hood that made it go. He embodies ‘Cats basketball — a physical grinder with an incredibly high basketball IQ who gives max effort on both sides of the court for 40 minutes. Those don’t come around every day.
Nationally, Barnhizer started to get some recognition this season for stuffing the stat sheet and racking up double-doubles, but national reporters don’t understand the full picture. Here at Northwestern, we do.
Whether it was diving for a ball on the ground in a random non-conference game or fearlessly driving the lane in the waning seconds of a March Madness bout with Florida Atlantic, Barnhizer was always doing something to fire up his teammates and the fans. It was remarkable to watch him play his brand of basketball with such consistency. Playing an entire basketball game with limited to no rest is hard. Playing an entire basketball game the way Barnhizer plays is herculean.
He wasn’t always as athletic or possessing as much raw talent as some of his opponents in the Big Ten. It didn’t matter. He was going to do his damn-best to outwork you, to out-hustle you, to love the game more than you.
That’s what made the final few games of his Northwestern career so tough to watch. You could tell he wasn’t capable of meeting his own high standards of effort. It wasn’t just the way he was gingerly maneuvering around the court. It was also written on his face. That joyful-but-intense Barnhizer we’ve come to know was replaced by a sullen, frustrated version.
So, when Chris Collins announced that his season was over after the Wisconsin loss, we weren’t completely blindsided.
“My whole thing with him was: ‘When it’s over, let’s know that we emptied the tank,’” Collins said after Saturday’s loss.
A noble goal, for sure, but Barnhizer got some incredible gas mileage. For his entire Northwestern career, his tank seemingly never emptied, and it’s jarring to watch the ‘Cats play without him on the floor.
The thing is though, Barnhizer is still here on campus. He’s still going to be in his best friend Nick Martinelli’s ear as he re-adjusts to being the top option. A foot injury can’t take away his impact in that locker room as a teammate. March Madness might be an all but dead dream at this point, but you can be sure those guys are going to battle for their fallen leader and continue to lean on his experience.
Part of the reason he’s so beloved on this campus is because he’s been a clear leader on this team even when he was younger. And if you’ve listened to Barnhizer talk about Northwestern, man, does that guy love this program. He truly bleeds purple, perhaps more than any other athlete who has played here during my time covering sports on campus.
That’s what we’ll remember the most about Brooks Barnhizer. He gave Northwestern basketball its identity, and he was able to do that because he believed in himself, but more importantly he believed without question that this program could be more than it was when he got here.
Well, Brooks, it certainly is, and we salute you. After all, a lot of it was your doing.
Barnhizer deserves a proper send off. He deserves to play out his final season in purple and white. He deserves to play on senior night. He deserves one final standing ovation as he checks out of his last game and bear-hugs an emotional Chris Collins. He deserves all of that.
But when we look back on Barnhizer’s career as a Wildcat, this is not what we’re going to remember. It’s not even close to what defines him here in Evanston. No, we’re going to remember him out on that court fearlessly swiping balls away from seven-footers and backing down defenders in the post. We’re going to remember him hyping up the crowd in big moments. We’re going to remember a guy who loved Northwestern and who believed in us as a university, as a fanbase and as a community just as much as we believed in him.
Brooks Barnhizer is Northwestern basketball, and yes, I’m willing to say it: hang No. 13 up in the rafters. It belongs on the court for the next couple months, but if we can’t have that, eventually it should take its rightful place.
So to Brooks, BROOOOOKS, Brooksy, Northwestern loves you, and we hope you know that.
Go do great things. We’ll be watching.