Tag: Nebraska

At one point Wednesday, you thought it just might be Nebraska’s night inside Pinnacle Bank Arena with the USC Trojans in town.

First, some Husker fan won a Porsche during a first-half timeout by putting a golf ball the length of the PBA court through a small hole on the other end. Then, at halftime, some young Husker fan hit a half-court shot to win some sort of prize.

Not even a Keisei Tominaga logo 3 got the PBA reaction the guy with a new Porsche got.

But when it came to the actual basketball, Fred Hoiberg’s Huskers were in a back-and-forth affair with Eric Musselman’s Trojans all night. But it was one Nebraska lost 78-73, which extended the losing streak to five games.

The loss drops Nebraska’s record to 12-7 overall and 2-6 in the Big Ten. USC improves to 12-7, 4-4.

Nebraska got double-digit scoring from three players — a career-high 27 points from Juwan Gary, 17 from Brice Williams and 15 from Connor Essegian off the bench. Everyone else combined to score 14 points on 6-of-16 shooting.

Nebraska had 11 turnovers and USC used those extra possessions to score 16 points. The Huskers struggled to find bodies in transition, an area of the game the Trojans outscored Nebraska in 16-4.

After the game, Hoiberg said his team didn’t finish off possessions at the clip it took to win. Nebraska was out-rebounded 36-31 and allowed 12 offensive boards to a USC crew that isn’t known as a strong offensive rebound team.

“Got to get on the ground. When you have an opportunity, you can’t just lean over and try to pick it up with one hand,” Hoiberg said. “These guys are too strong, they’re too athletic, that we’re playing against every night. You got to find a way to get dirty, get grimy, and finish off those possessions. We do that, I think it’s a different outcome tonight.”

It was a tight game all the way through with nine ties and 10 lead changes. A couple Williams free throws cut USC’s lead to 62-61 with 3:55 remaining in the game. Then Williams converted an old-fashioned 3-point play on a drive-and-bucket to knot things at 64.

But USC never let up and mistakes here and there cost the Huskers, like a turnover from Williams and an air-ball 3 from Essegian in crunch time. A USC dunk put the Trojan edge at 69-64 with 2:14 left.

At that point, some Husker fans hit the exits beat the traffic.

Williams then tried to put the team on his back. The 6-foot-7 guard and team leader sank a 3 to tie the game at 69 with 1:19 left, and at that point he had scored Nebraska’s last 10 points.

But USC’s best player, Desmond Claude, who finished with 21 points and six assists, said watch this and nailed a deep 3 to stop the Husker momentum and give USC a 72-69 lead with 43 seconds left.

Nebraska’s offense needed a response with the seconds ticking away, but it was without rhythm or any find of flow in the final moments of the game. Essegian took things into his own hands and a gritty offensive board and putback to cut USC’s lead to 72-71 with 19 seconds left. And after a couple free throws, Williams found Berke Buyuktuncel under the hoop for an easy layup to put the Husker deficit at 74-73 with 7.4 remaining.

The Huskers never even got a look at 3 in those final 7 seconds because, as he was dribbling up the court, Williams threw the ball out of bounds for the team’s 11th turnover of the night.

“Those things happen. But we’re gonna roll with Brice every day of the week,” Hoiberg said. “He called a team meeting for the guys the other day, so he’s doing things from a leadership standpoint.”

After the game, Williams took blame for how the team has been playing during this five-game losing streak.

“Toughness. Staying together. Sticking to our roots,” Williams answered when asked what the biggest issues facing the team are right now. “We’ve done a poor job of that, and it showed tonight. It showed in my leadership. It showed up in a lot of ways, and when it comes down to winning time, can’t really have certain mistakes. And the mistakes we had, they’ve just been compounded from game to game to game to game, and that’s why we’re on this streak.”

Leadership and toughness were on Williams’ mind after the game. Williams was blunt about how he didn’t meet the standard Wednesday night.

“It starts with leadership. I sucked at leading tonight,” Williams said. “Didn’t even shake hands, and I know I’m gonna be get-on about that, my teammates already got on me about it.”

A lack of toughness is holding the team back from doing what it thinks it can do in the Big Ten. In a conference where games are going to be tight down the stretch on a nightly basis, being tougher than the other team is crucial.

“This is about who’s gonna be tougher, who’s gonna get the 50-50 balls, and that’s gonna be the team that wins, and we haven’t been doing that,” Williams said. “We haven’t been doing that consistently enough. We’ll do it for one or two possessions, but then we’ll slack off for five, and then that’s the game right there. We should have had Maryland. We should have had Iowa. Should’ve had this game. Should have had Rutgers. That’s four easy drops that we should have had.”

Gary believes this team is capable of more. The overtime loss at Iowa and the three-point losses to Rutgers and Maryland suggest that’s true. Time is running out to turn the season around, and it’s time to remember the Big Ten Conference Tournament is a 15-team event, not 18. Three teams won’t be a part of it.

“We just gotta look at ourselves in the mirror and figure out, do we really want this bad?” Gary said. “I know I do. I know Brice does. I know a lot of guys do, but we all gotta look in the mirror as individuals, like, who all wants this? Because this my last year, man. This is it for me. So it hurts, definitely hurts.”

With how unpredictable this conference is, Gary said Nebraska could win five straight just like it lost five straight. But there’s one thing that will help accomplish that: belief.

Gary said that word was being harped on in the locker room following the loss.

“I believe in these guys. I believe in us,” Gary said. “There’s never a doubt that I will go through war and Hell with these guys, any day, all day. So, definitely frustrated. But we’ll get this right, we’re going to be good for sure.”

In this unpredictable monster of a conference, there’s no such thing as an easy night, and it’s not getting any easier for the Huskers.

Nebraska will hit the road to Madison to play No. 18 Wisconsin (15-4, 5-3), Essegian’s old team, on Saturday at noon.

“We have to stay together. When you’re on a streak like we are right now, the human nature is to start questioning and to separate a little bit, but we have to find a way to stay together through this tough time,” Hoiberg said.

The game with the Badgers will kick off a four-game stretch that also includes a home game against No. 17 Illinois (13-5, 5-3) on Jan. 30 and West Coast-swing contests at No. 15 Oregon (16-3, 5-3) on Feb. 2 and Washington (10-9, 1-7) on Feb. 5.

Sure, the Huskies have one conference win, but ask Purdue if it was easy putting them away in Seattle — Washington led the Boilermakers 30-22 at halftime last week.

“Just gotta want it bad enough,” Williams said. “We haven’t been going in there and taking it from opponents. We’ve been going in there and just wrestling instead of just taking it. But I mean, it’s a tough league. You gotta be tough, you gotta rise up to the occasion we can’t shy away, and we’ve been shying away.