Nebraska men’s basketball suffered its most disappointing loss of the season Wednesday, falling to last-place Rutgers 87-82 in overtime.
The Huskers didn’t just lose the game, they may have lost arguably their best player in Juwan Gary to a non-contact injury at the 12:57 mark in the second half.
“He’s pretty sore, I know that,” Coach Fred Hoiberg said in the postgame press conference. “I don’t want to speculate … We’ll get some tests tomorrow on him and hope for the best.”
In his postgame conversation on Husker Radio Network, Hoiberg mentioned Gary was “on crutches back there,” meaning the locker room, and that it looked like a foot or ankle.
Finding Toughness
Rutgers out-rebounded Nebraska 56-42 in the game. The most glaring was on the offensive glass where the Scarlet Knights had a 25-11 advantage.
“They are an incredibly physical team,” Hoiberg said. “It’s everything that you talk about going into it. You have to find a way to match toughness with this group. They just flat out out-toughed us on the glass.”
Rienk Mast had a team-high eight rebounds with three others grabbing six each, including Gary despite missing the last 7:03 of regulation and the five minutes of overtime.
“Rebounding is all about heart, guts and toughness,” Hoiberg said. “Right now we are just not good enough in that area to win consistently.”
It certainly feels like the Huskers will be in for a pretty physical practice as they prepare for a home game against Northwestern on Saturday.
Offense Stalled
The Huskers had two opportunities to put the game away. The first was in the first half with a 12-point lead at 27-15. Nebraska finished the half without a field goal in the final 6:24.
Nebraska built another 12-point lead in the second half and finished the second half without a field goal in the final 9:39. It was an inexplicable 12:38 without a field goal before Keisei Tominaga hit a 3-pointer with 3:48 left in overtime.
“They amped up the pressure and I didn’t think our cuts had the same purpose that we had,” Hoiberg said of the offensive struggles. “You’ve got to find a way to execute. We’ve been a pretty damn good offensive team all year. Give Rutgers credit, they made it difficult on us. When the pressure amps up like that you have to find a way to use it against them. You’ve got get some back cuts, you’ve got to curl, you’ve got to cut harder. We just didn’t have that same purpose that we had early in the game when we had the lead and when we built it back up in the second half.”
Before Wednesday under Hoiberg, Nebraska was 24-4 when it scored 80 or more points and 19-1 over the last two seasons.
Road Woes
Winning on the road this season is tough for just about every team, and Nebraska is no different. To date, Big Ten teams are a combined 11-32 on the road in conference play.
Nebraska is now 1-4 in true road games this season with all four of those losses coming in Big Ten play. The one win is a nonconference victory at Kansas State. The Huskers are now 4-12 on the road in the last 10 road games dating back to last season.
“A lot of teams in this league have lost road games,” Hoiberg said. “We can’t sit here and hang our heads and let this one affect what we have to do on Saturday.”
