The 2016-2017 season is a crucial one for the Northwestern Wildcats and head coach Chris Collins. Collins enters his fourth year, and the general consensus is that his program has to show significant signs of progress in order to reach the ultimate goal of making the NCAA tournament by the target year of 2018, when his first recruiting class will all be seniors. Collins has high expectations of a talented bunch of players, and they’ll need to show his expectations are not unfounded. With that, we run through every player on the roster this season. We round out the series with the two walk-ons on the team: Charlie Hall and Tino Malnati

Charlie Hall

Who he is:

Sophomore | 6-foot-5 | 210 pounds | Los Angeles, CA

Celeb connection:

Mom is Julia Louis-Dreyfus, dad is Brad Hall (both attended Northwestern).

Summary:

Like most redshirt players, Hall barely played last year. In the very few minutes he did get on the court, he didn’t do much of anything, often just looking to get rid of the ball. At 6-foot-5, he has good size and length, but he’s a set shooter without much quickness. In his 12 minutes of action last season (coming in eight games) the only stat he registered was one personal foul.

Tino Malnati

Who he is:

Freshman | 6-foot-3 | 175 pounds | Northfield, IL

Celeb connection:

Grandfather founded the popular Chicago pizza fixture Lou Malnati’s

Summary:

Tino shows the heady, instinctive playing you would expect out of a coach’s son — his dad coached at New Trier High School before moving onto Fenwick. He’s undersized and only had modest numbers in high school, and he won’t see much time this year, but hey, he does know his pizza.