Nebraska men’s basketball lost to Wisconsin Sunday afternoon in Madison, 83-55.
It is the sixth loss in a row for the Huskers and drops them to 2-7 in Big Ten play.
During the losing streak and in Big Ten play, the Huskers have struggled to put together a full 40-minute effort.
“This team has to play a consistent 40 minutes. We have such a thin margin with this group,” Coach Fred Hoiberg said in his postgame radio comments. “We can’t have lulls, we can’t have stretches like we did to start the game, to finish the half. We’ve just got to be more consistent.”
Slow Start
The energy and passion weren’t there to start the game. Nebraska went to a different starting lineup with Sam Hoiberg getting the second start of his Nebraska career and Andrew Morgan his first start as a Husker. It didn’t matter.
The Huskers got off to their worst start of the season, falling behind 19-2 in the first five minutes of the game.
“You can’t come out and dig a 19-2 hole,” Hoiberg said. “It takes so much energy to try to get out of that thing. These early games you just stress that you talk all the time ’til you’re blue in the face about getting off to a fast start, the team that does that wins these, and that’s exactly what happened tonight.”
Omaha Central product John Tonje scored eight of the first 11 Badger points and finished with a game-high 27.
Wisconsin hit five of its 17 made 3-pointers in the first 5:54 of the game.
Fighting Back
After the slow start, the Huskers showed the fight, energy and passion Coach Hoiberg was looking for.
Nebraska got 11 straight stops defensively and used a 14-2 run to cut the Wisconsin lead to three (24-21) on a Sam Hoiberg 3-pointer with 5:48 left in the first half.
Rollie Worster came off the bench and was a plus-9 in the first 20 minutes. Worster communicated well on the defensive end and was the only Husker who played significant minutes that had a positive plus/minus in the game at plus-3.
“We just didn’t have that energy, passion, toughness that you have to have to compete on the road in Big Ten basketball,” Hoiberg said.
Valuing Possessions
Trailing by 17 points early was a little more than Wisconsin making shots.
Nebraska once again didn’t value possessions and had eight turnovers that resulted in nine Wisconsin fast-break points in the first half. Three of the nine total first-half turnovers were sloppy turnovers and turned into Badger pick-sixes.
“Those early turnovers are killing us right now,” Hoiberg said. “We showed with those 11 stops in a row, it’s what it’s going to take. Nobody is going to feel sorry for us right now.”
Nebraska is now 12-8 overall and 2-7 in Big Ten play, with another tough test coming Thursday in Lincoln against No. 17 Illinois at 7:30 p.m. CT.
“We can’t have a pity party for ourselves,” Hoiberg said. “We’ve got to get out of it. We’ve got a big one coming up on Thursday before we head out west for two.”
Final thoughts from Nebraska’s 83-55 loss at Wisconsin.
1. Lack of “energy and passion.”
2. Fought back, not a consistent 40 minutes.
3. Best players have to play better. #Nebrasketball | #Huskers | @HailVarsity pic.twitter.com/8zDbKXeJmm
— Mike Sautter (@MikeSautter_) January 26, 2025
