The Northeastern men’s club basketball team is coming off a program high, going 35-2 (13-1 New England – East) in the 2023-24 season with a conference championship win and an appearance in the National Club Basketball Association, or NCBBA, Final Four. The team is 6-3 (3-1 New England – East) in the 2024-25 season so far. Its success is led by a veteran leadership group, who are looking to push the club even further in what is many of their final season.
Conference play got underway the week before winter break, and with a few New England – East games under its belt, the team currently sits third in the conference behind Boston College (6-0, 6-0 New England – East) and Harvard-Classics (5-1, 5-1 New England – East).
“The final goal is always just to win a national championship,” said Daniel Dalzell, a fifth-year environmental science and economics combined major who plays shooting guard on the club team. “We were just so close to it last year that obviously we want to make it back there and have an opportunity to do that again.”
Northeastern set numerous NCBBA records through the 2023-24 season, including the most wins in NCBBA history, the longest win streak (28) and the longest run at No. 1 (17 weeks). The Huskies came into the 2024-25 season ranked fifth in the NCBBA preseason poll.
The team’s dominance in the 2023-24 season was bolstered by an unusual abundance of non-conference games. On top of their 14 typical New England – East matchups, Northeastern added 23 out-of-conference games to their schedule, playing teams from schools including Quincy College, Clark University and Bryant University throughout the fall semester.
Although a nationals win is the ultimate goal, Dalzell also highlighted the importance of taking the season one step at a time.
“We have conference play coming up right now … so [we’re] getting ready to make the push, try and get to regionals again, and if we can perform well enough there, onto nationals to try and use the experience from last year to be able to perform better,” said Beckett Sanderson, a fourth-year data science and economics combined major and president of the club team.
The team split with Tufts University in its conference-opening weekend series Dec. 7, winning the first matchup 68-56 and losing the second by a slim margin, 77-75. The team returned from winter break hiatus ready to go, clinching back-to-back 20+ point wins over Stonehill College.
This season, Northeastern was expected to return many of its 2023-24 roster, including its starting top five. However, some big losses in the offseason and dealing with an “injury bug” throughout the fall semester has given the team a different look, and the players have stepped up to the challenge.
“It’s made people who wouldn’t normally otherwise, in the past, have to be leaders vocally, to now have to become leaders,” Dalzell said.
Notably, the Huskies’ coach, Knox Lendall, who led the team from 2021-2024, departed in favor of an assistant coaching opportunity at Post University.
“[Lendall] had sort of built the program from the bottom up, it felt like. He really just did everything for us, … so it’s been a really big adjustment for us,” Dalzell said. “We try to keep it intense, even though we don’t have an official designated coach, but just because of the great season we had last year, we really wanted to keep up the same intensity.”
Additionally, the Huskies’ roster was expected to return with its full starting five, but its two leading scorers — senior Nate Francois and Mykola Edinger — are now off the court and behind the bench.
In November, Francois, a senior guard and NCBBA points leader with 441 total points and 18.38 points per game, or ppg, last season, walked on to Northeastern’s DI team. Not long after, Edinger, who boasted 10.8 ppg in 2023-24, broke his hand. However, both stuck around to help on the other side of the action, and other student players, both e-board members and injured athletes, have stepped up into coaching roles as well.
However, the heavy upperclassman presence of the team has helped them naturally slot into leadership roles where it’s needed. Of the team’s 16-person roster, nine are fourth-years and two are fifth-years, eight of whom joined at the same time back in 2022 and are largely responsible for the Huskies’ recent success.
“[The team] has kind of grown up as our year has grown up,” Sanderson said. “We just become closer because we’re with each other, spending a lot of time [together], and now, we are the senior class and so you’ve just had this kind of continuity of the core group of players having been the core group of players for three years now, so you have a lot of chemistry with everyone and that kind of culture stems from that.”
The veteran group now works to spread the culture they’ve created to younger members, ensuring the same tight-knit community as the seasons progress, and ultimately, leaving a legacy for the club.
“I know I play a bigger role, a bigger voice. Last year, it was my first year on the team, so I was guided by others and followed either [Francois]’s footsteps or just the older people,” said Jonathan Wu, a third-year finance major who plays both point guard and shooting guard on the club team. “But now that I’m a junior … [and] we have some younger kids on the team, [I’m] definitely trying to guide them and make sure they’re in the right headspace for game day.”
Wu is the leading returner for the Huskies after posting 10.26 ppg in his rookie season, and will look to lead the Huskies on the court through another glorious season.
“It’s more than just basketball,” Wu said. “It’s a community, and we all understand.”
