On Thursday night, Northwestern men’s basketball predictably closed out its non-conference slate for 2016 with a win over Houston Baptist at Welsh-Ryan Arena. Despite their performance in the win being far from perfect, the result means that the Wildcats will enter Big Ten play with a noteworthy 11-2 record and an eight-game win streak to boot.
Those simple figures may not seem noteworthy in and of themselves. After all, at this same juncture just last season, the Wildcats found themselves with both a win total and a win streak that was one better. However, when looking at the total package of this team’s non-conference exploits, the Wildcats have positioned themselves better than any Northwestern team in recent memory to make history and break the program’s NCAA Tournament duct.