Another second-half letdown dooms NU in loss to Illinois

With 15:12 left to play, Nebraska had just tied the game up at 46-46 and looked poised to push Illinois down to the wire.

Once again, though, things fell apart for the Huskers down the stretch, and they instead suffered another lopsided defeat, falling 71-59 in Champaign on Monday night.

The Fighting Illini had five players score in double figures and used 19 offensive rebounds to take a whopping 71 shots, including a 14-5 edge in second-chance points. Nebraska also turned the ball over 13 times, and all of those extra possessions were all UI needed to pull away.

The loss extended NU’s school-record streak to 12 in a row and dropped it to 7-20 overall on the season, marking the first 20-loss season in program history.

"Yeah, 14 second-chance points, they had 14 more possessions with offensive rebounds, and we had 13 turnovers, so that hurt us," head coach Fred Hoiberg told the Husker Sports Network. "I thought we played really hard and competed all the way through…

“But when you give up 14 extra possessions, you're going to have a tough time winning a game on the road."

A sluggish start on both ends finally heated up midway through the first half, when NU freshman Kevin Cross was called for a technical foul after a made basket. That sparked a quick 6-0 run by Illinois and put the Huskers down 22-11.

Nebraska rallied back and used a 13-3 run of its own to tie the game up at 31-31 on a layup by junior Dachon Burke with 1:47 left in the half. But the Illini would get the last laugh, as Trent Frazier hit two 3-pointers in the final 20 seconds – including a 70-foot heave at the buzzer – to push the lead up to 37-31 at the break.

Despite the tough end of the first half, the Huskers came out firing and made six of their first seven shots of the second period to tie the game back up at 46-46.

That hot streak would quickly turn cold, though, as Illinois responded with an 11-1 run while NU didn’t make a field goal for nearly six minutes to put the Illini back up by 10.

Seven-foot freshman Kofi Cockburn made his presence felt more than ever during that stretch, scoring 10 of 19 Illinois points, and a layup by Ayo Dosunmu gave Illinois its largest lead of the night at 69-55 with 4:35 remaining.

Senior Haanif Cheatham led NU with 14 points and seven rebounds while Burke scored 13. Freshman Yvan Ouedraogo posted a double-double for the Huskers with 11 points and 10 boards.

Dosunmu finished with a game-high 18 points while Cockburn recorded his 11th double-double of the season with 15 points and 10 rebounds.

Nebraska will return to Pinnacle Bank Arena on Thursday night to host Ohio State for an 8 p.m. CT tip on Big Ten Network.

“Hopefully we can finish out strong, especially on our home court,” Hoiberg said. “We’ve got two more opportunities with Ohio State and Northwestern here in the next two. Hopefully we can go out strong and continue to play hard.

“The effort was where it needed to be tonight. We’ve got to clean things up and continue to work… but hopefully we continue to fight and play with great intensity.”

1. Mack’s absence was a major blow

Nebraska was handed some bad news before it even left Lincoln on Sunday when sophomore point guard Cam Mack was unable to make the trip to Illinois due to illness.

That left the already reeling Huskers without their leader in assists (6.5 apg), second-leading scorer (12.0 ppg), and second-leading rebounder (4.7 rpg).

Burke got the start in Mack’s place, his first in the last three contests, but NU used a point guard-by-committee approach to fill Mack’s 38 minutes per game.

Burke, junior Jervay Green, Cheatham, freshman Charlie Easley, and even Cross brought the ball up the floor and tried to quarterback the offense at times. While Hoiberg commended those guys for stepping into a role they weren’t used to, he admitted that the Huskers missed on some plays that Mack likely would have made.

The question now is how long Mack will be out? Hoiberg said he wasn’t sure whether Mack would be available to play in Nebraska’s home game vs. Ohio State on Thursday night.

Hoiberg said NU would take a “cautious approach” with Mack this week, and “if he’s not ready, we’ll go the same route that we did tonight.”

“We’ll evaluate him when we get back. I had a talk with him this morning and he was feeling a little bit better, but he’s still pretty run down.”

2. Ouedraogo’s development has been a bright spot

In a season where Nebraska needs to find all the silver linings it can get, the recent progress made by Ouedraogo over the past few weeks has to rank right up near the top.

A 17-year-old native of France who was thrown into the fire to learn American style basketball against Big Ten competition, Ouedraogo has, expectedly, gone through his share of ups and downs this year.

But the freshman forward seems to have taken a big step in his confidence and assertiveness both on the glass and with the ball in his hands. His 11 points and 10 rebounds on Monday night marked his second double-double, making him just the fourth NU freshman to post multiple double-doubles.

His 10 boards also vaulted him into sole possession of second place on Nebraska’s freshman rebounding chart. Now with 166 rebounds on the season, Ouedraogo moved past Dave Hoppen (161), Venson Hamilton (161), and John Turek (162) on that list.

“Yvan’s been terrific,” Hoiberg said. “To go out there and battle big Kofi like he did – that’s one of the strongest players in our league, and I thought he went toe-to-toe with him…

“You can see the confidence building in Yvan. He’s doing a great job of working every day with Coach (Armon) Gates before practice on his finishes, and you can see how much more comfortable he is out there on the floor.”

3. Nebraska got burned again to end the first half

Nebraska’s second-half struggles this season have been well documented, but another concerning trend has developed over the past five games.

Maybe you can just chalk it up to downright awful luck, but the Huskers have suffered deflating blows at the end of the first half in five straight games now. On Monday, it was Frazier barely beating the horn with a three-quarter court prayer to push a four-point lead up to seven going into the break.

Before that, Michigan State hit a 3-pointer with 18 seconds left to go into halftime up three. Wisconsin made a three with only five seconds remaining in the half, and Maryland drew a foul with just one second left and hit two free throws.

That all came after Iowa knocked down a deep 3-pointer at the buzzer to steal all the momentum at halftime.

Hoiberg called Frazier's two 3-pointers in the final 20 seconds of the first half was the “key stretch” of the game, and the same could be said in a few of those other recent halftime swings.