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Northwestern freshman center Chier Ajou and freshman forward Sanjay Lumpkin have been granted medical hardship waivers and will have four years of eligibility remaining, the school announced on Wednesday.

Ajou, a 7-foot-2, 235-pound center, played in seven games and averaged 1.1 points and 4.3 rebounds last season. He suffered a knee injury last season.

Lumpkin, a 6-foot-6, 195-pound forward, played in three games and averaged 1.0 points and 6.5 minutes last season. He suffered a wrist injury last season.

The Wildcats are expected to return 12 players from last season's roster for the 2013-2014 season. Northwestern, which went 13-19 overall last season, was without Ajou, Lumpkin, junior guard JerShon Cobb (academically ineligible) and senior forward Drew Crawford (shoulder) for a majority of the season. Crawford previously received a medical hardship waiver for next season.

Patrick Baldwin was announced Friday as the second assistant to join Northwestern coach Chris Collins’ staff.

Baldwin, a former Northwestern player, spent the last two seasons as an assistant at Missouri State and was previously at Loyola Chicago for seven seasons.

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Northwestern redshirt senior forward Drew Crawford announced Friday he has decided not to transfer and will remain at the school to play his final season.

After playing 10 games last year, Crawford used a medical redshirt because of a torn labrum in his right shoulder. He could have transferred to another program by taking advantage of the NCAA rule for fifth-year graduate students.

Crawford's decision was made tougher when Bill Carmody was fired after last season. Crawford had been recruited by and played under Carmody for four seasons. Carmody recently was replaced by Chris Collins.

"I can't wait to be on the court with my Northwestern teammates again this upcoming season," Crawford said in a statement. "Coach Collins has brought great energy to the program and we all believe in his vision. I have loved my experience here at NU and I'm proud to call it home. I'm ready to do all I can to lead this group and make my last year at Northwestern a great one."

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Now that Chris Collins has been hired as the Northwestern Wildcats’ coach, he has some work ahead of him if he’s going to establish it into a consistently winning program.

Here are five immediate objectives for Collins to start his tenure:

1. Move on from the past and create a winning mentality: You saw this when John Groce took over at Illinois and it worked to perfection. The message is important right away. Collins has to first convince his current players, then recruits and the fan base, that Northwestern is done with its past and is moving on to a brighter and winning future. Luckily for Collins, he might just have enough quality pieces to make a run at the NCAA tournament next season. If he can somehow get the Wildcats into the tournament in his first season, he can really get the program rolling. The first part of achieving that is to sell his team on the idea that it’s possible.

2. Convince Drew Crawford to stay: Next season’s fate likely depends on whether Crawford decides to stay at Northwestern for his fifth year or take advantage of the graduate school loophole and transfer to another program. Crawford, a 6-foot-5 guard, medically redshirted last season and had surgery to repair his right shoulder. He’s one of the more gifted players Northwestern has ever had. He’s a big-time scorer and team leader, but he also can rebound and defend. He was an All-Big Ten third-team selection as a junior, averaging 16.1 points, 4.7 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 1.2 steals.

3. Re-recruit Jaren Sina: Sina, a 6-foot-3 point guard, was ranked in ESPN’s top 100 in the Class of 2013 when he originally committed to Northwestern. He’s since dropped in ranking, but he would still be a major recruit for the Wildcats. He asked and was released from his letter of intent when Bill Carmody was fired. Sina’s father, Mergin Sina, said the family would still explore Northwestern as an option when a new coach was hired. Sina has reportedly also been contacted by Alabama and Seton Hall. Northwestern has a steady point guard in Dave Sobolewski, but Sina would add depth at the position and be the team’s point guard of the future.

4. Establish relationships with local high school and club coaches: Northwestern has to recruit nationally to fill a roster, but the Wildcats should still be able to pull players from the state whenever they fit their criteria. In the recent past, Michael Thompson, John Shurna, Crawford and Sobolewski are among the players Northwestern has recruited from Illinois and the Chicago area. Getting those players from the state is key for the program’s future as well.

5. Keep Tavaras Hardy on staff: Hardy, who was an associate head coach under Carmody, is the full package to get Collins going at Northwestern and recruiting the state. Hardy starred in high school in Illinois, played at Northwestern, coached at Northwestern and has been the program’s main in-state recruiter. He knows Northwestern inside and out. He also can quickly open for Collins a lot of doors to the state’s high school and club coaches. Collins is likely to bring an assistant or two with Duke ties, and that could helpful in a lot of ways, but it’s also vital to have someone who knows Northwestern and the state.

EVANSTON, Ill. -- What senior guard Reggie Hearn did at Northwestern on the court, which recently culminated into an all-conference honorable mention selection, can be attributed to the countless hours he put into his game.

How he ended up here and ever saw the floor during his four years with the Wildcats was more by chance.

Leading up to Northwestern’s first-round Big Ten tournament game with Iowa on Thursday, Hearn recently reflected on his journey from being barely recruited to becoming a Northwestern walk-on to now being the team’s leading scorer.

It’s a tale Hearn doesn’t mind sharing, and it’s one he certainly doesn’t take for granted. While he never doubted he had the ability to play in the Big Ten, he does understand it was only by chance he was able to prove that.

“To be honest with you, I reflect a lot on my good fortune,” Hearn said. “I think a lot of people of will say, ‘It’s a great story. He worked hard and everything.’ I remember a quote coach [Bill] Carmody said about me at the beginning of the year about Malcolm Gladwell’s book ‘Outliers,’ about a lot of successful people attribute to their hard work and everything, but the opportunities they had are really what get them there.

“You see, with me starting last year, we had two guys ahead of me get injured. Do I see the floor much last year if they don’t get injured? I don’t know. It was just a matter of me being able to capitalize on very fortuitous opportunities that came up for me.”

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In recent seasons, it's been pretty easy to diss Northwestern. In 2010, 2011, and 2012, the Wildcats have consistently flirted with an NCAA tournament selection, teasing their miserable fans with the prospect of salvation -- of ending their painfully pathetic all-time tourney drought -- only to flail in big moments, lose close games at home, and fall short in the Big Ten tournament. Oh, Northwestern, we say, faux-pitifully. Will you never change?

Not this season. This season, you should feel genuinely bad for Northwestern, and for entirely different reasons. Its best players keep getting hurt.

The latest injury was suffered by senior forward Jared Swopshire, whom Northwestern announced will miss the rest of the season -- his last as a college basketball player -- after undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery following Saturday's game at Iowa. A former Louisville transfer (who got minutes during the Cardinals' Final Four run last season), Swopshire was pursuing a graduate degree in sports administration, and was able to play right away under the NCAA's graduate transfer exemption.

Swopshire is only the latest injury: First was senior guard Drew Crawford, whose long-ailing right shoulder -- Crawford first dislocated it as a sophomore -- betrayed him with a torn labrum in mid-December. This was after Northwestern had gone on the road and beaten Baylor, a game which provided some hope the Wildcats didn't have to be one of the three or four worst teams in the country this season. Next up was Reggie Hearn with a more minor ankle sprain that cost him a few games in December (including the start of the Big Ten season).

Both of those injuries at least had a sunny side. In Crawford's case, the injury happened early enough in the season that he can medically redshirt and return in 2013-14. In Hearn's case, a minor knock didn't keep him from having his otherwise excellent season. But for Swopshire, this is it -- no chance to return this season, no chance for a medical redshirt. And he was just starting to play some of his best basketball, too.

Northwestern is 13-11 and safely out of the NCAA tournament conversation, so there is no other angle here. It's just a kid who had another month and change of college hoops left in his career, who won't get to play those games because of injury. It's just kind of sad.

Northwestern senior forward Jared Swopshire underwent arthroscopic surgery on his right knee on Tuesday and will miss the remainder of the season, the school announced.

Swopshire suffered the injury during the second half of Saturday’s game at Iowa. He transferred to Northwestern as a fifth-year graduate student prior to the season. He attended Louisville for his first four years and redshirted one season due to a groin injury.

“We all feel badly for Jared that he won't be able to play out the remainder of his final collegiate season," Northwestern coach Bill Carmody said in a statement. "He has been a terrific addition to the program, both on and off the court. He was enjoying a very productive year and was playing his most consistent basketball of the season when the injury occurred. There is every indication that he'll experience a full recovery.”

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The Chicago Cubs will hold a news conference on Tuesday to announce a partnership with Northwestern University, which will play a variety of sports at Wrigley Field, including football, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation.

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Reggie Hearn's 20 points led five players in double figures as visiting Northwestern beat Illinois 68-54, the third consecutive loss for the No. 23 Fighting Illini.

EVANSTON, Ill. -- In the offseason, Trey Burke told the media he thought the Wolverines were national title contenders.

At the time, it seemed like a stretch. There were questions worth asking: How good were the freshmen? Would the Wolverines defend? Could they really get to that next, almost imperceptible level -- where elite college hoops teams reside?

By now, it's long since official: Burke was right.

Of course, if you needed the confirmation of a 94-66 blowout at Northwestern, you probably haven't been paying attention. It's not so much that Michigan won its Big Ten road opener against a banged-up, overmatched Wildcats team in a split Welsh-Ryan Arena Thursday night. It was the manner with which the Wolverines so coolly and clinically dissected said overmatched Northwestern, the way Burke took the game over early, the way he got the Wolverines their 10-0 lead, the way he and his teammates kept pushing the pace and stretching the lead and pouring it on, the way they immediately and constantly snuffed out any and all thought of a nascent Wildcats comeback.

And it was the way the Wolverines -- starting with Burke -- all calmly shrugged the whole thing off.

"We came out, we made the right plays, and we got good shots," Burke said. "That was our goal, to come in and try to make a statement from the get-go. It's our first Big Ten game."

Burke said the Wolverines knew Northwestern guard Reggie Hearn would miss the game, and that his loss alongside guard Drew Crawford's, would make things easier for Michigan, even if he refused to acknowledge it before or after the game.

"We have to keep that attitude where guys are still doubting us," Burke said. "We can't go into a game thinking we're just going to blow a team out."

Of course, that's exactly what the Wolverines did, buoyed by a return from previously injured guard Tim Hardaway Jr., who returned from an ankle injury that kept him out of action against Central Michigan Saturday to score 21 points in 31 minutes. When Hardaway's shots started falling early -- after Burke had already crossed up Northwestern's hapless defense with noticeable, Chris Paul-esque ease -- Hardaway's hot shooting was a harbinger for the rest of the night.

By the time it was over, Michigan had shot 34-of-57 (60 percent) from the field and 13-of-22 (59 percent) from beyond the arc, and scored 1.4 points per possession on the road in their Big Ten opener.

Any way you slice it -- bad Northwestern team or no -- a 28-point road win in your Big Ten opener is some kind of statement.

"We're still trying to make believers out of a lot of people," Burke said.

Some quick thoughts on Michigan's wire-to-wire 94-66 drubbing of Northwestern Thursday night:

Overview: Northwestern never had a chance. Any version of this Wildcats team -- even one at full strength, with injured stars Reggie Hearn and Drew Crawford or long-since-suspended JerShon Cobb -- would have had a brutally difficult task keeping this Michigan team from scoring at will Thursday night. But that's not the current Northwestern team. Missing all those players, with an undersized backcourt and little besides Alex Olah in the paint, the Wildcats were obviously overmatched. Michigan opened up a huge early lead and never looked back -- oozing confidence all the way through.

Turning Point: The opening tip. That sounds like a joke, but it really isn't: Michigan went up 10-0 by the 16:48 mark -- Trey Burke had seven of those points, including two ankle-breaking moves (one that led to an open 3, one that left poor Dave Sobolewski in the dust) -- and genuinely never looked remotely like losing control of the game from there. The lead was 33-13 at the 10-minute mark, and 51-30 at halftime. In recent seasons, at something like full strength, Northwestern has been at best a foil and at worst a tough out for the Wolverines in Welsh-Ryan. That wasn't the case Thursday night.

Key Player: Trey Burke. Michigan had a handful of impressive performances. Tim Hardaway, Jr. returned from injury on point from the perimeter. Nik Stauskas shot well (as usual) and put the ball on the deck enough to keep defenders honest. Mitch McGary finished with eight boards, and showcased a little open-floor defensive work with an early steal and fast-break dunk. But Burke was the one worth the price of admission. He was in control of the game the entire time -- see the aforementioned opening burst, or his 15-point, 6-for-10 first half performance -- but more than anything it was the way he handled the game. Nothing was rushed, nothing was difficult, and nothing was beyond his control. The Wildcats were unable to put up much of a fight, but I don't care: Burke makes it all look way too easy.

Key Stat: In the first half, the Wolverines finished 21-of-36 from the field and 8-of-13 from from beyond the arc. And then it was over. Good luck defending that.

Miscellaneous: Welsh-Ryan Arena has a pretty great little basketball ambiance; its size makes it intimate, and its age helps it feel vaguely old school. But that purple court is every bit as bad as it looks on TV. (My Twitter replies seemed torn on whether it was drawn with colored pencils or markers. Your mileage may vary.) ... Northwestern had a rough night at the office -- the highlight was definitely when the school introduced football coach Pat Fitzgerald, fresh off a 10-win season, as the "best college football coach in the country," which made visions of a displeased Nick Saban dance in my head -- but freshman center Alex Olah was a bright spot. For a guy who only the most hardcore recruitniks had heard of before he signed with NU, Olah looks like much less of a project than he should be. His ball control could be better, but he has a fledgling hook shot over both shoulders, and he moves well (and intelligently) without the ball. He's a keeper.

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No. 2 Michigan at Northwestern, 7 p.m. ET, ESPN2: Winning on the road in the Big Ten is (almost) never easy, and the Wolverines will be missing star off guard Tim Hardaway Jr.

Northwestern's Welsh-Ryan Arena can be a tricky place to play, even if your fans make up half of the crowd. Michigan's strength is offense, and offense can occasionally abandon you on the road.

I could probably go on like this for a little while, listing off all the reasons why Michigan could lose at Northwestern tonight. And you know what? Yeah. Sure. Maybe. It could happen. But I sincerely doubt it will.

Were Michigan traveling to Welsh-Ryan to play a Northwestern team that included Drew Crawford (who suffered a season-ending shoulder injury in December), JerShon Cobb (who was suspended for the season this fall) or even Reggie Hearn (who is likely to miss Thursday night's game with an injury), then this game might be a legitimately scary one for Michigan fans. With Crawford and Hearn, as well as some solid big-man play from Louisville transfer Jared Swopshire and impressive 7-foot freshman Alex Olah, Northwestern was playing pretty well to start the season. With Cobb, this team might have been the one.

Alas, that always seems to be the talk in Evanston -- if only X were true! The Wildcats team that Northwestern fans are faced with is considerably undermanned on both sides of the ball but particularly on defense, where Michigan plays some of the sweetest and most efficient hoop in the country.

Even without Hardaway -- who cooled off a bit after he scored 18.3 ppg in three straight November wins over Pitt, Kansas State and NC State -- the Wolverines offense features the nation's best shooter, freshman Nik Stauskus, great size and depth with Jordan Morgan and Mitch McGary and the immense athleticism of freshman Glenn Robinson III, whose offensive rating of 129.1 (on 18.1 percent usage) is outstripped only by Trey Burke's (133.5, 27.1 percent) and Stauskus, who makes everything (136.7, 17.1 percent).

Burke is smart, hard-charging, Big Ten-tested and totally capable, and he leads the most talented group of players John Beilein has ever coached. The offensive result is a joy to watch.

Colorado at No. 3 Arizona, 8 p.m. ET, ESPNU: ESPN Insider's John Gasaway was tasked with discussing the Oklahoma State Cowboys, whose resurgence has been timed perfectly with the emergence of a Big 12 that, other than Kansas, looks anywhere from mediocre to downright bad. At the risk of giving up too much of our Insider content -- pony up, kids! -- one of John's points not only applies to Oklahoma State but to Arizona too. Under "Don't apologize for your 'down' league, dominate it," John writes:

The Cowboys' resurgence comes at a time when the non-Kansas Big 12 looks about as weak as we've seen for a good long while, at least on paper. But how much weight does that paper really carry when it comes to actual games? Good question. Note for example that in recent years the Pac-12 has tended to sport a very bad conference-wide number for average team strength, and I've been quick to mount what might be called the "Hey, it's not Washington's or Cal's fault the Pac-12 commissioner added Utah for football" defense. In other words, one or two unusually bad teams can bring down a whole league's "average" strength.

This was half of the problem with the Pac-12 last season, the year in which it became the first power six league to crown a regular-season champion that was not awarded an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. That statistic, embarrassing as it may be, came about because A) the Pac-12 didn't beat anyone in the nonconference season, and B) by the time its best teams needed NCAA bubble help, there was nothing to distinguish the regular-season champ. The whole season was a big pile of blah salad.

That will not be the case in the Pac-12 this season. Stanford and Cal are decent teams. Colorado, UCLA and Oregon have Top-25 potential, and if UCLA ever figures out how to play a lick of defense with its talent, it could still prove scary good.

Then there's Arizona. The Wildcats appear to be a bona fide national title contender. You can cast doubt because the important wins have been so very close -- beating both San Diego State and Florida on the final possession of the game -- but when you consider the fact that Arizona went ahead and won those games despite being so young and so reliant on a transfer point guard (Mark Lyons), well, I don't care how tight those wins were. They were wins, and they hint at a potential that only a handful of teams across the country can look to match.

That is how the Pac-12 is different this season. Not only are there more good teams, there is at least one with a shot to cut down the nets in March. Arizona doesn't have the 2012 Pac-12 to apologize for anymore; tonight's matchup with a good Colorado team is no walk in the park, and if the Buffaloes spring the upset, that will say as much about Tad Boyle's team as Sean Miller's. The Wildcats don't need that excuse, anyway. They just need to dominate.

Elsewhere: UCLA begins conference play by hosting Cal. Let's see if the Bruins have figured out how to guard opposing guards yet, because Cal's Allen Crabbe is one of the conference's best (20.9 ppg). … The other Pac-12 game is Stanford at USC. Remember when Kevin O'Neill sold his USC team as a potential tournament squad? That was fun. His team is now 5-8 with losses to Nebraska, UC Irvine and Georgia. But hey, at least USC football is in good hands. … The truly good mid-major stuff is at a minimum Thursday night, but Fairfield's trip to Canisius -- the same Canisius team that won at Temple a few days before Temple beat Syracuse on the road -- is an interesting one. (That Canisius-Temple-Syracuse thing is going to lead us down some truly awesome transitive property rabbit holes by the time the season is over. Just you wait.)

Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald weighs in on his team's win over Mississippi State in the Gator Bowl, what the Wildcats' 10-win season means to his program and more.



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Northwestern running back Venric Mark talks about earning All-America honors, his season, and the upcoming bowl matchup against Mississippi State.

Mississippi State Bulldogs (8-4) vs. Northwestern Wildcats (9-3)

Jan. 1, noon ET, Jacksonville, Fla. (ESPN2)

Mississippi State take from SEC blogger Edward Aschoff: What started as a possible dream season for the Bulldogs, quickly turned ugly when the month of November rolled around.

The Bulldogs started off the season 7-0 and rose as high as 11 in the BCS rankings. While the early part of the schedule was very favorable to Mississippi State, this team showed a ton of promise with how balanced it was on offense and how much its secondary frustrated opposing offenses.

Through the first seven games of the season, the Bulldogs allowed an average of 327 yards. The 95 points allowed by their defense was the lowest total through the first seven contests for the Bulldogs since the 1999 team held opponents to 74 points.

Quarterback Tyler Russell was also one of the nation’s most efficient passers and was one of just three quarterbacks with 15-plus touchdowns and just one interception through seven games.

But after being blown out by 31 against Alabama and setting foot in November, the Bulldogs fell apart. The lack of a consistent pass rush and execution issues on offense set the Bulldogs back, as they went 1-4 in their past five games and were outscored by 93 in the process.

The season ended with a 41-24 loss to archrival Ole Miss in Oxford. It was the Bulldogs’ first loss to the Rebels since 2008.

Even though the regular season ended in a very unflattering way, the Bulldogs could still finish the year with nine wins for the second time in four years.

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Northwestern take from Big Ten blogger Adam Rittenberg: Northwestern not only reversed the recent trend of declining wins totals this season, but it left its fans wanting more. The Wildcats went 9-3 to match their best regular-season record under seventh-year coach Pat Fitzgerald, and they were a play or two away from winning the Legends Division. If they had held onto late leads against both Nebraska and Michigan, the purple could be heading back to Pasadena.

Although finishing games was a struggle at times, Northwestern exceeded almost all expectations with a young roster. After finishing no better than 45th nationally in rushing during Fitzgerald’s first six years, the Wildcats’ ground game surged this season (14th nationally, third in the Big Ten). Junior running back Venric Mark blossomed in his first season as the starter, and, along with quarterback Kain Colter, formed one of the Big Ten’s most dangerous backfield tandems. Northwestern used both Colter and sophomore Trevor Siemian at quarterback and went from a pass-first offense to a run-driven attack, as Mark earned second-team All-Big Ten honors and finished ninth nationally in all-purpose yards (170.7 ypg).

A much-maligned defense had some hiccups along the way but made obvious strides, too. Linebacker David Nwabuisi saved his best season for last, and younger players like safety Ibraheim Campbell, cornerback Nick VanHoose and linebacker Chi Chi Ariguzo stepped up.

The next step is obvious: winning a bowl game for the first time since the 1949 Rose. Although Northwestern moved down a few spots in the selection order after being pegged for Capital One on Saturday night, the Wildcats have a winnable game against struggling Mississippi State in the TaxSlayer.com Gator Bowl.