Becoming

WRITTEN BY ANDREW KATZ // DESIGNED BY EMMA ESTBERG

As fans stormed the court after Northwestern’s historic win over the No. 1 ranked Purdue, Daniel “Boo” Buie soaked in the moment four years in the making.

“That was the first time the court had ever been stormed in my career,” Buie says. “I wish every game could get stormed like that. That environment was sick.”

Buie, who announced in early May he will be returning to Northwestern for a fifth year, was instrumental to one of the Wildcats’ best basketball seasons in school history. The SESP fourth-year from Albany, New York averaged a career high in points, assists, rebounds and field goal percentage during the 2022-23 season.

Expectations were low for the Wildcats coming into this winter. CBS Sports and ESPN’s experts predicted Northwestern would finish 12th out of 14 teams in the Big Ten Conference. This was largely in response to Pete Nance and Ryan Young — two of the team’s top scorers last season — transferring to North Carolina and Duke, respectively. For Buie, leaving Northwestern was never in the cards.

“Coach [Chris] Collins and the staff talked about being a part of a rebuild and being something special,” Buie says. “They saw how I could help this program get back to the tournament, so I felt like I owed it to them to come and give it four years, giving them my all.”

Northwestern was the only school in one of the five major college conferences to make an offer to Buie, making his decision to return for his senior season a no-brainer.

“I’m a big loyalty guy,” Buie says. “I’ve always been big on trust, and it’s not always greener on the other side. So sometimes you just got to jump over obstacles and figure it out to create your own path.”