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Northwestern had a chance to make a little bit of school history, get revenge against a rival and come close to locking up its NCAA Tournament future with a win at Illinois on Tuesday night. All of those potentially historic markers are on hold following a 16-point loss to the Illini, and the performance itself was disappointing enough to rethink to the Wildcats’ current status in the projected field of 68. 

Northwestern’s 18-4 start put Chris Collins and this year’s team right in the center of the annual conversation eyeing the program’s first-ever NCAA Tournament bid. The Wildcats have dropped four of six since then, but strangely enough picked up the best win of the season during that stretch at Wisconsin. Jerry Palm currently has NU as a 7-seed in his projected bracket, and with four games to go in the regular season, Tuesday night’s game against the Illini looked like the easy way to finish off a tournament-ready resume. 

Nobody was hitting shots against Illinois -- 32.1 percent from the field, 22.2 percent from 3 -- and by the middle of the second half a victory, which would have served as retribution for the Illini’s win in Evanston earlier this month, seemed like a lost cause. 

As they said themselves (on Twitter), it just wasn’t Northwestern’s night. 

Nothing is going to come easy for Northwestern. Now 20-8, the team finishes the season with a challenging three-game stretch that starts at Indiana on Saturday and is followed by back-to-back home games against Michigan and Purdue (March 4 on CBS). 

As long as Northwestern gets one win in its final three games there shouldn’t be much of a reason to sweat out Selection Sunday. Everyone seems confident that win No. 21, which would be a new program-best, is coming, and there’s already reason to celebrate with the best Big Ten winning percentage since 2004 already locked up. 

The key from here for Collins is making sure that Northwestern can match the energy and focus of its opponents during this final stretch of games. Illinois was a step quicker from the start, and Collins mentioned as much in his comments after the game.

“We’re going to have to play better to win in this league against anybody we play,” he said. 

Northwestern’s eventual NCAA Tournament bid will be one of the great stories of March Madness, but until they get more offensive consistency the wins that can secure their spot in the field of 68 will continue to be hard to lock up. After Tuesday’s loss, Collins will pull the group together and prepare for a prime time tip-off at Indiana on Saturday night. It’s not a must-win, but a victory would make Selection Sunday much less stressful.