3 Takeaways From Northwestern Men's Basketball's Blowout Win Over Penn State

The Northwestern Wildcats men's basketball team has almost returned to pseudo-respectability of late. Across its last three contests (all within the Big Ten), Northwestern has gone 2-1, and has kept its hopes of at least qualifying for the Big Ten Tournament alive this season.

At home on Thursday, Northwestern took down a similarly mediocre conference program, the Penn State Nittany Lions, in a comprehensive 94-73 smackdown. It was a five-point game at the break, but Northwestern exploded in the second half, outscoring Penn State 49-33 during the period. The victory improved the 'Cats to a 10-11 overall record (2-8 in Big Ten play).

Here are our three takeaways from the clash.

Nick Martinelli Is Gunning For An All-American Team

The 6-foot-7 Glenbrook South product poured in a game-high 34 points on 13-of-19 shooting from the field (4-of-7 from long range), while grabbing four boards, dishing out a pair of dimes and swiping a steal.

Through 20 bouts this season, the 2025 All-Big Ten honoree has been averaging 24.0 points on .551/.492/.792 shooting splits, 6.7 rebounds and 1.8 dishes a night. As of this writing, Martinelli now paces the NCAA in scoring.

Chris Collins Has Lost Faith in Arrinten Page

The highly-touted transfer remains Northwestern's second-most prolific scorer for the season, behind only Martinelli.

Lately, however, the 6-foot-11 big man has barely played. Page was first demoted to a bench role for a narrow 84-78 Jan. 3 loss to Minnesota. He briefly returned to Collins' starting lineup, for Big Ten tilts against Illinois and Nebraska, but by the second half of the Cornhuskers game Collins was over him.

Since then, he has averaged just 10 minutes a night across the last three games, and suited up for just three minutes on Thursday. Page took two shots, making none, and logged a turnover as his only positive notch on the stat line. It's clear that Collins is prioritizing pace over size, and his smaller current frontcourt appears to be more than up to that task.

Tre Singleton Could Be The Real Deal

With Page more or less irrelevant now, Singleton has stepped up on the boards. He grabbed a career-most 18 rebounds against Penn State, while also chipping in 17 points on 7-of-10 shooting from the field and 2-of-3 shooting from the charity stripe. His performance Thursday marked just his second-ever night of double-digit rebounding, and the first double-double of his collegiate career.

The 6-foot-8 true freshman forward may not have much of a jumper (he's connecting on just 17.1 percent of his 2.0 tries from 3-point land), but as a slightly undersized big who can run the floor, he seems likely to have a long-term home with these Wildcats.

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