After consecutive conference road losses to Iowa and No. 17 Purdue last week, the Nebraska men's basketball team (12-4, 2-3 B1G) is looking to turn things around inside Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln on Thursday night.

And while the opponent, the Rutgers Scarlet Knights, are a team with an overall record of just 9-8 and a Big Ten mark of 2-4, they still rate as a dangerous team because of the two NBA lottery picks keeping everything afloat in Piscataway: Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey.

Those two freshmen combined for 38 points while leading Rutgers to a 75-68 win at home over UCLA on Monday. That victory snapped Rutgers' own losing streak, which stood at three games (the losses came to Indiana, Wisconsin and Purdue).

"Two of the most talented players I've seen at their age with Harper and Bailey," Husker head coach Fred Hoiberg said on Wednesday.

Harper, a 6-6, 215-pound guard, is averaging 20 points, 5.2 rebounds and 4.4 assists. He's shooting 50% from the field and 34% from 3-point range. His resume includes some impressive outings already — 37 points vs. Alabama and 36 vs. Notre Dame, to name a couple.

Harper missed the Jan. 2 game against Indiana with an illness, but he looked all the way back against UCLA with 18 points and four assists.

"He just has such a command of the game and such a great pace for a freshman in college," Hoiberg said of Harper. "And he does whatever it takes, whether it's scoring the ball, he's lethal from behind the arc, gets into the paint, one of the best pick-and-roll players in the country when you look at the numbers."

As for Bailey — the 6-10, 200-pound guard looks like a slightly shorter and younger version of NBA great Kevin Durant — the freshman out of Chattanooga, Tenn., is averaging 19 points, 7.7 rebounds and leads the team with 20 blocks.

Bailey's top highlight of the season so far came on the road in a loss at Indiana, when his team was without Harper. That night Bailey looked like a video game player on easy mode. He recorded 39 points, four rebounds, four blocks and hit four 3s, many of which were of the high-difficulty variety.

Against UCLA, Bailey had a double-double of 20 points, 10 rebounds and three blocks.

"His 39-point game at Indiana was was incredible," Hoiberg said. "With his ability to make tough shots, we can't get deflated when those guys are making those types of shots. Just have to keep trusting it, keep trying to do the best we can to close out and make him take difficult shots. But two of the top-five draft picks are going to be in our building tomorrow. Great challenge for us."

Tipoff on Thursday is slated for 8 p.m. with the game being shown on FS1 with Kevin Kugler and Nick Bahe on the call.

After the UCLA win, Nebraska looked to have an identity of a tough, rugged, defensive-minded team. But then the Huskers hit the road, and the defense suffered.

Iowa and Purdue combined to shoot 53% from 3-point range, hitting 36-of-68. After limiting Iowa to just 31 points, its first-half season-low, the Huskers couldn’t hold a 15-point lead with 14 minutes left in the second half and allowed guard Payton Sandfort to go off for 30 points and six 3s in the second half and overtime.

The Huskers were never in the Sunday game at West Lafayette and the Boilermakers were deadly from deep, making 19 3s, which set a new record for most made 3s from a Nebraska opponent.

Obviously, consistency is key. Hoiberg doesn't want to be a team that plays lights-out at home while getting embarrassed each time they hit the road. And a big part of being consistent is taking care of the ball and not letting the opponent pick up extra possessions. Nebraska is averaging 12.6 turnovers per game, second-most in the Big Ten.

In the loss at Iowa, Nebraska turned the ball over 14 times, and the Hawkeyes scored 15 points off them. At Purdue, Nebraska had 17 turnovers, and the Boilermakers scored a whopping 22 points off the mistakes.

"We just have to make simple plays. When we play in a crowd, very rarely do good things happen, when we try to hit the home run. This team is not really built for that," Hoiberg said. "When we hit singles, when we make the simple play, we generally get good, quality possessions. And for us, that's what it's all about, is making simple plays, trusting it, and then when you have an opportunity to drive it to the basket, that's one thing our team has done a good job of, is getting to the free throw line."

Against UCLA, Nebraska attacked the hoop and was money from the free-throw line, connecting on 25 of 29 attempts. But at Iowa, the Huskers uncharacteristically struggled, making just 12 of 22 while the Hawkeyes made 22 of 25. At Purdue, the game was over before the Huskers even realized it, but they did much better, going 10 of 11.

Nebraska is 8-0 when playing at PBA this season, and the UCLA win extended the winning streak inside the arena to 20 games.

But the Huskers don’t want a repeat of last season, when they were as good as anyone in the country on their home court, but like many other Big Ten teams, they couldn’t win on the road. The Huskers finished the regular season 2-8 against conference competition away from PBA.

So far this season, Nebraska has been blown out by 37 points at Michigan State and 36 points at Purdue. The one conference road game that looked like a win, Iowa, ended with a 10-point loss in overtime.

The way Hoiberg and his staff look at it, it's too early to panic. The coach has a formula he follows: if you win at home, it's a zero; if you lose on the road, it's a zero; if you lose at home, it's a minus-1; if you win on the road, it's a plus-1.

By Hoiberg's formula, Nebraska is still even.

"It's not time to panic," Hoiberg said. "You look at a couple of the teams that are in front of us in the standings, they're also at a zero. And the team that's got the highest plus at the end of the year generally wins the league. I think Michigan State and Michigan are both a plus-three right now. So we just got to keep grinding and again trusting."

And the trust factor is crucial, Hoiberg said.

The coach understands that, after what can be considered embarrassing losses to Iowa and Purdue, there may be a perception outside the program that change needs to happen to how the Huskers go about things on the court.

"I think sometimes there's such an overreaction when something happens, like it did the other day at Purdue," Hoiberg said. "What do you do with the system? Do you start over, or do you just do it better, do it longer, do it harder. ... We got to just get back to being who we are and doing it with more consistency and having longer stretches where we do it right. When we do that, we've shown we've got a formula. It's pretty good."

One player who could provide a spark offensively is Connor Essegian, who’s been streaky this year. In the games against UCLA and Iowa, the 6-4 Essegian scored a combined 8 points while shooting 2-of-13 from the field and 2-of-12 from 3.

But perhaps Essegian’s second half at Purdue will help him find his rhythm again. After being held scoreless in the first half — he did chip in with three assists — Essegian was a bright spot in the second by scoring 17 points with three 3s, though he took eight of them in the final 20 minutes.

In the six non-conference buy games, plus Murray State and Hawaii in the Diamond Head Classic, Essegian averaged 14.6 points per game while shooting 46% from the field and 47% from 3 (28-of-60). But before the Purdue game, in the tilts against Big Ten opponents plus St. Mary’s, Creighton and Oregon State, Essegian averaged 7.4 points while shooting 33% from the field and 29% from 3 (9-of-31).

"We need him. We need Connor out there to space the floor and to knock down shots," Hoiberg said.

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