Late rally falls short in 65-54 loss at Northwestern
In a game that would be the difference in Nebraska being the No. 11 seed in the Big Ten Tournament or moving up to as high as the No. 9 seed and getting a first-round bye, the Huskers waited a bit too long to step up their sense of urgency against Northwestern on Sunday.
After falling behind by as many as 20 points in the first half, NU managed to chip away at the deficit and get back to as close as six with four minutes still to play. The rally proved to be too little, too later, however, as Nebraska once again couldn’t make enough plays to close it out in a 65-54 defeat.
Junior guards Andrew White and Tai Webster each scored a team-high 13 points for the Huskers (14-17 overall, 6-12 Big Ten) but it wasn’t nearly enough to keep their squad from dropping its ninth loss in its final 11 games to close out the regular season.
With the defeat, Nebraska will be the No. 11 seed next week’s Big Ten Tournament in Indianapolis, where it will face No. 14 Rutgers in the first round on Wednesday night. No team has ever won five games in five days in the history of the Big Ten tournament.
"When we guard well, we just play well," head coach Tim Miles said during his postgame radio show. "When we kind of go through the motions and get crabby or whatever and don't play defense the way we should, we don't play offense very well either. I thought those two things were related."
Nebraska came out sluggish on both ends of the floor, struggling to score points and get stops while getting into early foul trouble. Even so, the Huskers found themselves up 11-9 after a basket by freshman Glynn Watson with 13:19 to go.
It would be all downhill from there on into halftime, though, as Northwestern quickly responded with a 13-0 run that saw NU go nearly six minutes without a point.
A 3-pointer by Webster would finally end the streak, but the Wildcats came right back with another 13-1 run to go up by as much as 20 points with just over three minutes left in the half.
Senior Shavon Shields helped stop the bleeding with five straight points in the final 47 seconds, including a 3-pointer just before the buzzer, but Nebraska still limped into the locker room down 37-22 at the end of the first half.
The Huskers shot just 33.3 percent from the field (8-of-24), while Wildcat seniors Will Demps (12 points) and Alex Olah (8) nearly outscored NU by themselves.
"I just regret that 13-0 run," Miles said. "I had some young guys out there that weren't performing well on either end, and I didn't use a timeout to quell that run... That is a big regret, because maybe if we could've been down 11 or 12 at halftime instead of 15, that could've been a big difference."
Nebraska was slow out the gates once again to open the second half, but it eventually was able to chip away at the deficit and get it down to 12 on a jumper by White with 12:30 left to play.
A 3-pointer by Webster three minutes later brought it to 11 with just over nine minutes to go, and then Webster got it within single digits on a tough drive and layup that made it 49-40 with 8:18 remaining.
After another four minutes, NU took another step closer after a put-back layup and then two free throws by Shields capped a 9-2 run and made it 55-49 with 4:03 still on the clock.
"We just had to play them more even in the first half," Miles said. I told the guys, 'We will control the second half.' We told them that all week. Just to let it get away from us in that first half was disappointing."
That would be as close as it would get, though, as Olah knocked down a long jumper, Shields missed the front end of a one-and-one and Sanjay Lumpkin scored a layup to push the lead back up to 59-50 with just over a minute to play.
A turnover by Shields led to two free throws by Aaron Falzon to make it a double-digit lead and sealed the victory for the Wildcats, who finished with 20 regular-season wins for the first time in school history. Nebraska, on the other hand, ends the regular season with five straight losses.
Shields ended the day with 11 points on just 2-of-12 shooting from the field, as the Huskers shot just 36.5 percent as a team compared to 45.3 percent by Northwestern. Olah led the Wildcats with 19 points while Demps added 17.
"This is the second year in a row that we lost the last game of the year for the single bye," Miles said. "We'll be ready for Rutgers. Hell, we've got to earn confidence, and the only way you earn confidence is finding a way to come out and play well and get a win."