Nebraska men’s basketball hasn’t coined a theme, at least not publicly, this season. The 2024-25 team’s word that kept coming up was gritty.
Wednesday night, Nebraska wasn’t just gritty in its 30-point blowout win over Wisconsin; they were out for blood.
The Huskers were dominant, they were tougher, they were connected.
The No. 23 Cornhuskers won 90-60 and beat Wisconsin in nearly every statistical category.
Wisconsin head coach Greg Gard summed it up best in his opening line of the post-game press conference.
“There’s not another facet in the game of basketball that [Nebraska] couldn’t kick our rear end with. They did it all.”
They eviscerated a team that beat their rival, Marquette, 96-76 two days earlier. A team that opened Big Ten play with an 85-73 win over Northwestern three days prior.
This Husker team is a very mature group, graduate player Rienk Mast said after the game. They were the tougher team on Sunday against Creighton and were supposed to win that game.
Three days later, this connected group had a short turnaround, just two days to prepare for a Wisconsin bunch that took them behind the woodshed (83-55) in Madison last season.
The win is a sign of a group whose star, Mast, is the unquestioned leader, one who has one dunk in his Nebraska career yet is supremely confident in his position, so much so he is quick to answer questions for his teammates or help them along the way in front of the media.
“I think we have a very mature group, but also we try to tell everyone to not be satisfied now,” Mast said. “We’re ranked, yeah, but that doesn’t mean anything. We just got to go play our best game the next game. I think we made some good steps against Creighton. Our defense was really good and we carried that over to this game. That has to be a constant this whole season. We have a very mature group. I liked our talk in the locker room after this game. We were supposed to defend home court. You have a huge advantage at home. And now we have to go on the road and get a tough one.”
Nebraska was supposed to win Wednesday, but not in this dominant fashion. The final point spread of Nebraska, favored by 1.5, would not have held up after the first eight minutes of the game.
This group of what some might call plucky players held the reigning Big Ten Player of the Week to just seven points, all coming in the first half. John Blackwell shot 1-for-11 from the field after pouring in 86 points in the three-game span prior to Wednesday’s shellacking. That is how connected the Huskers are defensively.
There was a bit of a lapse defensively in the first five minutes of the game. The Badgers were using a slip screen or short roll from the top of the key to get a few easy buckets. After the first media timeout, it changed.
A word that keeps coming up for the 2025-26 Huskers is deflections.
“I thought our defense was really good after the first five minutes,” Coach Fred Hoiberg said. “I thought we weren’t really sharp early at all of the things we’d worked on the last three days. We were not showing up on the court. Then we started getting active. We had zero deflections in the first eight minutes of that game. Once we had some activity going, going out on the break, that’s what fuels everything with our team.”
Debilitating is a way to describe the Husker defense. They have given up 63 or fewer points in their last three games. Two of those, Creighton and Wisconsin, are traditionally teams that can score points in a hurry.
Wisconsin likes to play fast and the Huskers held the Badgers to just two fast-break points. They didn’t just get back on defense to shut down transition opportunities; they were patient on the offensive end.
The Huskers got the ball in the pocket (middle of the court) at will, outscoring the Badgers in the paint 44-24.
A lot of credit has gone to the fans and the environment inside of Pinnacle Bank Arena the last two nights. This team isn’t just connected on the court; they seem to be connected to their fans, and the fans have rewarded them by cheering for the hustle plays as much or more than the made 3-pointers.
There might just be something with this 2025-26 team to tether onto as it looks to make more history in March.
