Nebraska men’s basketball didn’t meet the moment in a devastating 67-65 loss at home to Minnesota.
How is it devastating? A Quad 3 loss, at home, this late in the season and the way it happened all make it devastating. It was the first Minnesota win at Pinnacle Bank Arena and the first win in Lincoln since 2012.
“I’m absolutely sick on how that whole thing played out,” Coach Fred Hoiberg said after the game. “Give Minnesota credit, Ben [Johnson] has done a great job with that team. It’s their fifth road win. Those guys are fighting, they’re scrapping, and you can see that out of them right from the beginning.”
Nebraska once again couldn’t find a way to play a full 40 minutes, something Hoiberg has harped on the entire season. The response and urgency from Minnesota was there the entire game and the Golden Gophers played like the team fighting for their postseason lives, not Nebraska.
It felt like the Huskers played tense at the start and let Minnesota control the pace offensively. Nebraska didn’t come out of the gate with the same crisp defensive effort it did on Monday night against Michigan.
In the first half, Nebraska settled for long 3-point shots at times and Juwan Gary was the only one attacking the rim.
Minnesota senior guard Brennan Rigsby came into the game averaging 4.3 points and shooting 29.2% from 3-point range on the season. He had just 30 points and four made 3-pointers in Big Ten play prior to Saturday.
Rigsby got confidence early and Nebraska couldn’t shut him off, another thing Nebraska has struggled with this season.
“I give him so much credit,” Johnson said. “His minutes have been kind of up and down, but he’s never changed. He’s the same guy every day, no ego. He gets up his shots, extra work, positive attitude. He makes that 3 — you guys don’t know we played in Orlando in a tournament, and he had a 3, I do not know how it didn’t go in. He hit every part of the rim and rolled out. And the basketball gods, when you do the right thing, and he’s done it ever since, to this point, they reward you, and that’s why that shot went in, because he’s about the right stuff. Just so proud of him and just all of our guys.”
The Gophers got 31 points from their bench, including a team-high 20 from Rigsby.
Nebraska had a spurt to end the first half, a 9-2 run to cut the 14-point Minnesota lead to nine at the break.
After gaining momentum to end the half they once again didn’t meet the moment. Throwing the first punch, another thing Nebraska has struggled with to start halves this season, didn’t happen.
“They scored nine in a row to start the second half, and all of a sudden we got the urgency that we needed out of the gate and you just can’t do that in this league,” Hoiberg said. “You can’t get down 18 or 20 and all of a sudden decide to flip the switch. We’re not good enough for that, and this league is too good for that, to do it to anybody. We did a lot of really good things in that run, but it wasn’t a long enough stretch, and I know we’ve talked a lot about that this year. Our pace finally got to where it needed to be, our urgency defensively, we got deflections, we were at the level, and that led to a good, efficient offense. When we’re taking the ball out of the net, we’re just not a very good team right now. We don’t have enough weapons to knock down shots out there for a long enough stretch. When we get stops and allow our defense to turn into offense, we’re a pretty good team.”
After Minnesota built a 19-point lead with 15:43 left, Nebraska woke up on a Brice Williams pick-six with 14:12 left in the game. That got the sellout crowd into the game and Nebraska’s pace and urgency got going for the first time in the game. .
It was too little, too late.
“It’s always about energy and approach with us. It’s not really talent. It’s not really ability or anything. Making shots, that’s a given. The game rewards people who play hard. People who have the right approach, people with good attitude,” Nebraska senior Brice Williams said. “We didn’t start with that but Minnesota did. Our energy, effort, and intensity picked up and the game got right. The score got right. It seems like I’m saying the same thing every game. We start out butt and then we finish straight. But then it’s too late. You can’t turn it on, turn it on, we have to come in turned on.”
Nebraska has two more guaranteed opportunities to put the uniform on, but the Huskers are running out of bullets, Hoiberg said.
A 1-1 finish and they could be in jeopardy of not making the Big Ten Tournament, a 0-2 finish and you can almost guarantee it.
“It’s frustrating,” Williams said. “We’re trying to take it one day at a time. We’re not going to be there if we can’t handle today. We didn’t handle it today. Something’s got to change. We have the ability. We have the want. We’ve got to have it more consistently. It’s there, but we have to go out there and take it. Nobody is going to give it to us, especially in this league.”
