The addition of Barret Benson brings a lot of excitement, especially when looking ahead to 2017 and 2018.
All it took was a Monday evening phone call. Barret Benson, a rising high school senior at Hinsdale South in nearby Darien, Ill., and his family phoned up Chris Collins and broke the news: the 6-foot-9, 240-pound center was committing to Northwestern. And just like that, the future of Northwestern basketball got significantly more exciting.
The biggest potential impediment for Chris Collins and Northwestern in the coming years — the biggest roadblock between this program and the NCAA Tournament — had been, in the eyes of many, a lack of a true center.