IOWA CITY, Iowa — In what was its worst offensive performance of the season, Nebraska men’s basketball fell to Iowa, 57-52 on Tuesday night, for its second road loss of the season and fourth overall.
With the Hawkeye win, the home team has now won 14 of the last 17 games in the series, and Nebraska falls to just 3-21 all-time in Iowa City.
“They made the necessary plays to win the game,” Fred Hoiberg said of the Hawkeyes after the game.
The one who made most of those “necessary plays” was Iowa senior Bennett Stirtz. The Hawkeye point guard has made big plays all season, and he made the biggest one of the night on Tuesday.
After Iowa trailed by 11 in the first half as Nebraska applied pressure, Stirtz hit a step-back 3-pointer with 4:58 to go to give Iowa a 50-45 lead, one the Hawkeyes would not relinquish.
“The kid’s an animal, I think he’s as good as anybody in the country,” Hoiberg said of Stirtz. “The kid’s absolutely phenomenal.”
The Huskers forced Stirtz into four turnovers (to just two assists) and made him take 22 field goal attempts and seven free-throw attempts to get his game-high 25 points, but Nebraska didn’t have anyone score more than 13 points.
Sandfort’s Record Night
Iowa transfer Pryce Sandfort made two of his six 3-point attempts in the game. His first was his 89th of the season, which tied Cary Cochran for the Nebraska single-season made 3-pointers record, set in 2001-02.
With his second made 3-pointer of the game at the 14:10 mark of the second half, he broke the record.
“That is such an emotional game for him (Sandfort) with the chants going on during the warm-ups and everything,” Hoiberg said. “You’ve just got to do everything you can to block it out.”
The former Hawkeye was the focus of the Iowa student section. Every time he touched the ball, the students booed him. When he wasn’t booed, they were chanting “F—- Pryce Sandfort.”
“I didn’t hear them chanting at me, Sandfort said. “Just another game, that was my mindset the whole time.”
Teams have focused on Sandfort, the Huskers’ leading scorer, more recently with physicality on and off the ball.
“They were super physical, came out of the gate super physical,” Sandfort said. “Super physical with me off the ball, always had their hands on me and were there on the catches. Credit to them, they had a really good game plan, executed it well. We’ve just got to be more physical going forward and push back when they are pushing us.”
Sandfort was Nebraska’s top scorer with 13 points, but he only scored two more points, via the free-throw line, int he final 14 minutes after breaking Cochran’s record.
Rebounding Trend
Nebraska has had rebounding woes all season, particularly on the offensive glass. Tuesday, Iowa out-rebounded the Huskers 37-24 and 12-2 on the offensive end. The Hawkeyes entered the game grabbing just 28.7% of their misses in league play, good for 13th. On Tuesday, that rate was 34.3%, and although that only equaled out to an 8-4 advantage in second-chance points, the Hawkeyes grabbed a couple key offensive boards down the stretch and the slight edge made the difference in a game that went down to the final seconds.
Rienk Mast grabbed eight rebounds, Sam Hoiberg grabbed six and nobody else notched more than three.
“We were better in the last game (Northwestern),” Fred Hoiberg said. “Two out of the last three we weren’t very good.”
In the 80-77 home loss to Purdue, the Boilermakers out-rebounded the Huskers 54-37 and 21-6 in offensive rebounds.
After the Iowa loss, Nebraska now ranks 336th out of 365 Division-I teams in offensive rebounding percentage at 25.4%.
“Give credit to Iowa, they really got underneath us,” Hoiberg said. “Their physicality overwhelmed us.”
Moving On
Frankly, Iowa was the more physical team, not just on the glass but in almost every facet of the game. The Hawkeyes out-toughed a team that, prior to Michigan on Jan. 27, prided itself on being the tougher team.
The Huskers were not that on Tuesday night and haven’t been in their four losses this season.
Nebraska has avoided a bad loss this season, and Tuesday was not one on the road, against a rival in a hostile environment, against a team fighting for its NCAA Tournament life.
Saturday, in Lincoln against Penn State, the Huskers have a chance to get it right against one of the worst teams in the Big Ten.
If they don’t find that toughness soon, the magical season could end in disaster. There is no time to hang their heads or sulk after a tough road loss, Hoiberg said.
“We’ve gotta find a way to regroup and bounce back,” he said. “We’ve got a big one coming up on Saturday.”
