West Lot Pirates

Tonight, we begin to preview the teams on Northwestern's schedule. The Wildcats will open up the season looking for revenge from last year's surprise loss to Michigan State. Sparty comes in to Evanston trying to fix a lot of holes in the roster and developing a culture under Mel Tucker. Will they start to put things together enough to make noise in opening week?

The 2020 Maryland Terrapins were the model of inconsistency. While their defense was awful at times last year, the offense showed some potential at times. Will a return to normalcy help the Terps move up in the loaded Big Ten East?

Tonight, we continue our 2021 Summer Previews with a look at Penn State. After a 0-5 start last year, they finished off with 4 consecutive wins. Nevertheless, everyone in Happy Valley looked at 2020 as a lost season. They bring back a lot statistically, but will it be enough to get them back into the mix at the top of the East Division?

With all the huge news on the national scene, we take a quick break from our summer previews to discuss the CFP expansion possibility, the SCOTUS 9-0 ruling against the NCAA and a flurry of recruits committing to Northwestern.

Indiana had a magical 2020 season as Tom Allen's plan took them to new heights. With many of the same pieces of the puzzle returning in 2021, will this be the season to get them to Indy?

It's the moment you've been waiting for, our 2021 Summer Previews! As per tradition, we kick off the series with a look at the Big Ten teams that Northwestern will not be playing this season. Ohio State is coming off another Big Ten Championship and a trip to the National Championship game. As you can imagine, they lose a lot of top talent off last year's squad, but with the sheer amou...

Northwestern finally has a new Athletic Director. Derrick Gragg had his welcoming press conference this week and we react to the hire. Then, we kick off our annual tradition with our Summer Previews. Before we start talking team by team, we try to get a handle on the over-arching storylines that we expect to see this season.

As we come to the verge of our 2021 Summer Football Previews, we need to put a bow on the spring sports. Lacrosse made a valiant run to the NCAA Final Four before falling to Syracuse. Softball made it into the NCAA Tournament as well before falling to Kentucky in their sectional. Also, June brings the end to the on-campus recruiting dead period, so we expect to see quite a bit of activity this mon...

To call the past 10 days in the world of Northwestern Athletics crazy would be an understatement of epic proportions. Today, the Mike Polisky era came to an abrupt end as he announced his resignation just 10 days after accepting the job. Tonight, we raised the emergency pod beacon so we can try to make sense of what all just happened and where we go from here.

Northwestern's hire of new Athletic Director Mike Polisky is, in a word, divisive. This is a very complicated situation and to help us process everything we welcome in former Daily Northwestern Sports Editor Ella Brockway and former InsideNU Editor-In-Chief Lia Assimakopoulos to discuss all the different facets of the hiring.

We join forces with our good friends at Winning Cures Everything to discuss the first round of the 2021 NFL Draft as it happens. It's wild, it's crazy and it's a whole lot of fun!

We continue our run-up to the NFL Draft as we sat down with Defector Media and Northwestern's own Kalyn Kahler. Tonight, we cover her journey from Sports Illustrated to Defector before we dive into the 2021 NFL Draft and some of the fun things she's hearing from behind the scenes. 

As we start our run-up to the NFL Draft, this week, we welcome in Tim Chapman, author of ChampioN Underdog: The Improbable Success of the 1995 Northwestern Football Team. We reminisce about the amazing Rose Bowl run that 95 team went on, dive into some of the great stories from the book and from the writing of the book.

Northwestern made an exciting run to the second round of the NCAA Women's Basketball tournament in San Antonio before running into a spectacular Louisville squad. Tonight, we recap the two games in Texas before turning our attention to the insanely successful runs pretty much every spring sport are undergoing in Evanston. 

After last year's hiatus, it's great to have the NCAA Tournaments back in our lives. We would be remiss if we didn't bring back our resident bracketologist Scott Sepich to come talk about this years Men's and Women's tournaments. The NU Women picked up a 7 seed and will face UCF in round 1 with a potential matchup against Louisville in round 2. We talk all this and more with Sc...

As another disappointing season from the Men's Basketball team comes to a close, we sat down with former Wildcat guard Jordan Ash to discuss the team, his background coming up in the Chicago Catholic League and talk about his brand new podcast.

With the 2020-21 Men's Basketball team spiraling down towards another disappointing season, it's time we take stock of the direction of the program. We are now 4 years removed from the magical run to the NCAA Tournament, but things are looking pretty bleak. Is it time to move on? What impact will the new Athletic Director have on the situation? We also catch up with the Women and start to...

For the first time in a few years, there was some actual drama to the February Signing Day. Northwestern brought in two highly regarded WR signees today and to talk about them, and the rest of the 2021 class, we sat down with @NUFBRecruiting to discuss.

The Northwestern world is abuzz with the news of a new QB and Defensive Coordinator. Ryan Hilinski has announced his transfer from South Carolina to Northwestern and Jim O'Neil will soon be announced as the new DC. This week, we talk all about these new additions and how they might impact the team in 2021.

With the 2020 college football season now officially behind us, we look back at where Northwestern finds itself in the grand scheme of things, examine the comings and goings of the transfer portal and check in on both men's and women's hoops as we get deeper into conference play.

Citrus Bowl Champions! That has a nice ring to it. Tonight, we look back at Northwestern's dominating performance over Auburn, reflect on the season, pay homage to Coach Hankwitz and begin to think about where this team goes for the 2021 season

For the first time in Northwestern history and only the 3rd time ever, the Cats are ranked in the top 20 in both Men's and Women's Hoops and Football (not to mention the top 10 ranking in US News and World report for the school itself.) Tonight, we talk about the Men's team and their amazing week of wins over Michigan St., Indiana and Ohio St. before we turn our attention to the Citrus...

While the outcome was not what we had in mind, the effort on the field was anything but disappointing. Tonight, we recap the Big Ten Championship game, then we discuss the colossal upset by the Men's Basketball team over Michigan State. After that, we will try to talk everyone off the ledge who is worried about the several football players entering the transfer portal before we begin to look a...

For the sixth consecutive year, the Hat stays in Evanston! More importantly, Northwestern is back in the Big Ten Championship game for the second time in three years! With so much on the line, we had to bring in Jay Sharman from Lake the Posts to join us as we talk about last week's game and preview the title game against Ohio State.

With the Northwestern/Minnesota game cancelled, Northwestern is back in the Big Ten Title game for the second time in three years. The LOLHat is on the line this weekend as the Cats look to finish off the 2020 regular season. Tonight, we welcome back ESPN's Adam Rittenberg to the show to help us make sense of this wild, wacky season. Then we look ahead to this weekend's action.