Nebraska men’s basketball pulled off its largest comeback since joining the Big Ten conference in a 68-64 win at Northwestern on Sunday.
The Huskers are the first team to overcome a 20-point deficit to win a Big Ten road game in seven years. The last time that happened was Feb. 17, 2018 when Michigan State came back from a 27-point deficit, coincidently at Northwestern.
The win was Nebraska’s first at Welsh-Ryan Arena since February of 2014. Nebraska also defeated Northwestern in 2018, but that was at Allstate Arena in Rosemont.
Nebraska’s first half was its worst of the season. The team didn’t come out and start fast, which Fred Hoiberg said has been key for this team this season.
The Huskers’ offensive execution was bad and they got out-rebounded 29 to 11, including 14 to two on the offensive end. They didn’t score their first field goal of the game until the 13:31 mark and committed careless live-ball turnovers, something that has plagued them at times throughout the season.
Northwestern, not Nebraska, looked like the team fighting to make the NCAA Tournament, not a team fighting to make the Big Ten Tournament.
Nebraska was dreadful in the first half as Northwestern “flat out punked us in the first half”, according to Hoiberg during his postgame radio appearance.
Maybe it was the “little incident” Hoiberg had with a white board in the locker room at half that gave the Huskers a spark in the second half. Hoiberg came out of the locker room with his hand wrapped.
The Huskers didn’t start the second half any better than the first, giving up a 5-0 run in the first 45 seconds.
With 19:15 left in the game, the Wildcats held a 20-point lead. At the 18:04 mark, Andrew Morgan’s two free throws started what would become an extended 22-4 run in nine minutes and nine seconds.
During the second segment of the second half, from the under-16 timeout to under-12, Nebraska was the tougher team. The Huskers went on a 10-0 run in 3:18 and held Northwestern scoreless in 3:44.
Juwan Gary’s jumper with 6:05 remaining tied the game at 54.
The senior leaders stepped up for the Huskers as Brice Williams had 15 of his team-high 21 points and Gary 13 of his 17 in the second half.
It was the 24th time in 26 games that Williams has reached double figures and his sixth straight with 20-plus, the longest streak by a Husker since Tyronn Lue in 1997-98.
The bench helped secure the win. Braxton Meah and Connor Essegian showed some toughness in the second half. It was easily Meah’s best game as a Husker, finishing with 10 points, seven rebounds and two blocks.
Essegian finished with eight points and a game-high plus/minus of plus-12. All four of his defensive rebounds came from the 14:29 to 11:13 marks of the second half, in the middle of the Husker comeback.
Nebraska has had trouble this season “shutting off,” as Hoiberg says, a player after they get going offensively. Sunday in Evanston, Sam Hoiberg did just that. He shut down Ty Berry, who finished the game with 23 points but didn’t make a field goal after his sixth 3-pointer with 17:11 left in the game.
It was another Quad 1 win for Nebraska, and the Huskers are now 6-7 against Quad 1 opponents with two more opportunities left this season. First, the road trip continues at Penn State on Wednesday.
