Northwestern Coach Chris Collins Freaks Out, Gets Ejected After String Of Questionable Calls Against Purdue

Getty Image / Justin Casterline

Northwestern came close to sweeping the season series against arguably the nation’s best team in Purdue, but lost a tough one in overtime, 105-96.

The clear story coming out of this game is the egregious free throw discrepancy and Northwestern Head Coach Chris Collins getting ejected after losing his mind late in the game.

The free throw disparity was truly insane in this game. Purdue went to the foul line 46 times, while the Wildcats only shot eight free throws. Yes, the team with the 7’4 star in Zach Edey is going to usually win the free throw battle. After all, he’s going to get fouled a lot, and teams will be less reluctant to get the ball inside and drive to the rim with a giant like him in there. But, 46 to 8 is pretty ridiculous.

There were some questionable calls in this one, to say the least. Take a look at this one.

After the game had been lost for Northwestern, Chris Collins felt like he needed to make it known how much he thought the game had been officiated unfairly.

Yeah, that’s an all-time great tantrum by a coach. Normally I think coaches need to cool it a little. But, when the foul shot disparity is 46 to 8, that’s a pretty good reason to go nuts.

Coaches understand they won’t get a friendly whistle in road conference games. But, this seemed to be well across the line of what just an unfriendly road whistle.

It would’ve been a big win for the Wildcats, too. Northwestern currently sits as a seven-seed in Joe Lunardi’s latest bracketology. A road win over the second-ranked NET team in America would’ve meant that Northwestern would have to have an epic collapse down the stretch to miss the NCAA Tournament. Mind you, this is a program that has only made the NCAA Tournament two times in history, so back-to-back experiences would be a pretty big deal.