Northwestern Wildcats

The Northwestern Wildcats play at Welsh-Ryan Arena in Evanston, a program that spent decades as the answer to a trivia question -- the last Power Five school never to make the NCAA Tournament -- before finally breaking through. Purple-clad crowds have embraced coach Chris Collins's patient rebuild, which turned Northwestern into a legitimate Big Ten contender for the first time in program history. It's a smaller basketball market with a genuinely underdog identity.

Northwestern went its first eight decades in the NCAA Tournament era without ever qualifying, finally breaking through in 2017 under coach Chris Collins. The Wildcats have since reached the tournament again in 2023 and 2024, including a first-round upset run. Northwestern has no NCAA championships and a single Big Ten regular-season era of dominance (1930s conference titles), but the program's recent tournament appearances mark the most successful stretch in its history.