Northwestern Competing with Six Other NCAA Programs for Top Transfer Guard
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After a third-round exit from the Big Ten Tournament ended their season, the Northwestern Wildcats are looking to revamp their offense.
The departure of the program's sixth-leading scorer in history, senior two-time All-Big Ten Team forward Nick Martinelli, means that Northwestern will be without the 6-foot-7 Glenbrook South product's 23.0 points on .510/.417/.809 shooting splits, 6.2 rebounds and 2.0 assists per.
Per Joe Tipton of On3 and Rivals, the Wildcats are in play for one of the top transfer portal guards on the market. They're competing against Ohio State, Wake Forest, Wisconsin, Villanova, Vanderbilt and Indiana to snag Cornell Big Red graduate student transfer Jake Fiegen, a 6-foot-4 guard.
Multiple high-major programs are gaining traction with a top transfer portal guard 👀
— Joe Tipton (@JoeTipton) March 22, 2026
The 6-foot-4 grad transfer averaged 17+ points while shooting over 41% from three this past season.
Intel: https://t.co/k116W5PqPh pic.twitter.com/HC2n0cnWMX
Wildcat Nation reports that the Buckeyes, Hoosiers, and Commodores are all honing in on Fiegen.
Northwestern may have a bit of an inside track. After all, Fiegen is a Wilmette native and a New Trier alum, so the Wildcats were always in his backyard.
Across 24 contests with Cornell in 2025-26 (17 starts), the junior swingman enjoyed a breakout season. He averaged career highs of 17.1 points on .546/.414/.772 shooting splits, 5.1 boards, 2.1 dimes and 0.9 swipes (the latter merely tying his sophomore season stat in that same category) a night.
What Does Fiegen Add to the Wildcats?
Put simply, 3-point shooting.
Fiegen has been an elite marksman from distance for the past two seasons. He's a career 37.6 percent shooter from deep, on 4.2 triple tries a night. Last year, he connected on 41.4 percent of his 5.5 looks from beyond the arc.
Martinelli had been the club's lone reliable volume jump shooter all year. Fiegen doesn't have Martinelli's size, but could help to bridge the floor-spacing gap left in his wake.
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An Evanston native, Alex Kirschenbaum is also a proud Northwestern alum. He has written for Bleacher Nation, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, Hoops Rumors, Trailers From Hell, Men's Journal, and Bulls fan sites Blog-A-Bull and Pippen Ain't Easy, among others. Alex knows Zach Collins has given the Bulls some good years, but he'll never forgive the then-Gonzaga center for that very obvious goaltend against the Wildcats during the second round of the 2017 NCAA Tournament.