Senior Night is like no other night.

Time flies when you’re having fun, especially if you’re players such as Brooks Barnhizer, Matthew Nicholson, Ty Berry, Keenan Fitzmorris and Jalen Leach, who gave their all during their time at Northwestern – whether that was one season or five.

Although Barnhizer and Leach said goodbye to the 2024-25 season early on, the former with a foot injury and the latter with an ACL injury, all five looked to soak up Welsh-Ryan Arena one more time, as Northwestern (16-14, 7-12 B1G) went against the UCLA Bruins (21-9, 12-7 B1G). Nonetheless, it was not meant to be, as the Wildcats fell 73-69 against the visitors.

“I give our guys a lot of credit for continuing to fight,” head coach Chris Collins said in the postgame press conference.

UCLA won the tip-off, and the crowd began to get wild. An early layup from UCLA’s third-year guard Skyy Clark got them on the scoreboard first. However, third-year forward Nick Martinelli, the second-leading scorer in the Big Ten, was right behind them with the first five Wildcat points of the game. Throughout the game, UCLA was quick and effective in recovering the ball, even if a few buckets were missed, and it was a back-and-forth duel that kept the clock running for a while. Berry provided the Wildcats with their first three-pointer of the night, making the stands vibrate early into the game. With the score at 11-11, the first timeout was called, going into six minutes of play.

One must say, the crowd was the highlight of the night, fired up despite it being a Monday.

“To have the kind of crowd we did, the student turnout, I think it says a lot to our players about the connection they made with their fellow classmates,” Collins said.

As the game progressed, the Wildcats tried to stay in control to avoid trailing a UCLA team that came to fight. No worries – they brought in first-year guard K.J. Windham, who scored two straight three-pointers, taking a lead of 22-21. Coming into this game, Windham had tied his career-high and scored a game-high 20 points against Iowa on Feb. 28.

Free throws were the Wildcats’ advantage in the first half, making eight out of 10, considering the Bruins had no free throw attempts at all. The team was cohesive, and everyone loved it. Up until then, only one out of 10 players on the court had scored in double digits, and that was none other than Martinelli. To place the cherry on top of the first 20 minutes, a characteristic dunk from Nicholson brought the Wildcats up 35-34 to end an incredible first half.

Things began to get heated as the second half was underway, and it was no surprise. The last time these two teams faced was in the second round of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament in March 2023, where UCLA came out victorious. This time around, it looked like UCLA wanted a similar outcome, as third-year forward Tyler Bilodeau, who tallied a team-high 19 points, scored the first four points of the half, making it 38-35.

The boos from the student section were louder by the second, but they wouldn’t be enough to intimidate UCLA, who continued to score. The Wildcats began to trail and lose control, as UCLA’s second-year center Aday Mara, who had a game-high 10 rebounds, was the main man in charge of defending his team’s side of the court. The truth is Northwestern began to fall behind, and it would only make it harder for a potential comeback. There were a few times where Northwestern could have recovered lost balls, but UCLA was faster, recording a whopping 38 rebounds compared to Northwestern’s 24.

At some point, the Wildcats began to trail by double digits, losing 68-54, with less than five minutes left to make any type of magic happen. The arena began to get quieter as many began to foresee a potential final score. Once the final minute came into action, Berry got the team to as close as 68-67 with a much-needed layup, but last-second miracles wouldn’t be the case in this game. After a few free throws from both parties, the Wildcats, despite their dominance for most of the game, would fall against the Bruins.

The Wildcats will now have to wait and see how others in the Big Ten perform throughout the week. To end their regular season of Big Ten matches, Northwestern will travel to Maryland to face the No. 13 Terrapins on March 8. To solidify their participation in the Big Ten Tournament, a win will be the Wildcats’ best bet.