Huskers collapse in 95-71 blowout loss to Penn State

In what was viewed as the arguably the most winnable game left among Nebraska’s five remaining regular-season contests, the Huskers were overmatched from start to finish in a 95-71 road loss at Penn State on Tuesday night.

With major postseason implications on the line, the Huskers fell behind in the opening minutes and trailed by as many as 29 against a Nittany Lion team that was last place in the Big Ten standings.

James Palmer Jr. led NU with 24 points but did so on another inefficient 7-of-20 clip, while Penn State shot 55.6 percent from the field with Lamar Stevens dropping a game-high 29 points. The 95 points were a season-high for PSU and the most Nebraska had allowed all year, topping the 93 it gave up in a loss at Iowa on Jan. 6.

It was also the first time Nebraska had given up 95 points in a regular-season conference game since January of 2006 (Kansas, 96).

“I said (to the players), ‘You guys have gotta help me out with this one,’” head coach Tim Miles said on his post-game radio show on the Husker Sports Network. “I didn’t see it coming.”

The loss not only ended Nebraska’s two-game winning streak, it dropped its record to 15-12 overall and 5-11 in conference play, making an already extremely steep climb back into the NCAA Tournament picture even more difficult.

Nebraska senior Tanner Borchardt scored the game’s first basket, but Penn State (10-16, 3-12) immediately followed with a 13-2 run to jump out to a big early lead and never looked back.

The Huskers would later go nearly five scoreless minutes to allow the Nittany Lions to push their lead to 27-14 with just over eight minutes to go in the half. A tip-in by Mike Watkins with 31 seconds left would eventually send PSU into halftime with its biggest advantage yet at 44-25.

Penn State, which came in as the worst 3-point shooting team in the Big Ten at 31.2 percent, hit six of its first 15 attempts from behind the arc and shot 50 percent from the field overall in the first half. On the other side, Nebraska missed all six of its threes and committed a combined 15 fouls and turnovers compared to just 12 made baskets.

The Nittany Lions also held a 21-16 rebounding edge at halftime, including hauling in eight offensive boards for 13 second-chance points, while also scoring 14 points off of seven NU turnovers.

A 3-pointer by Glynn Watson and five straight points from Palmer got the Huskers off to a good start 30 seconds into the second half and pulled the score back to within 14. But the rally would be short-lived, as Penn State quickly pushed its lead back to 64-39, marking the largest deficit Nebraska had faced all season.

The previous biggest losing margin had been 20 points in a home loss to Maryland on Feb. 6.

“We started on a pretty good roll on offense to start the second half, but then it becomes we don’t get rebounds,” Miles said. “Pretty soon you look up and (the deficit is) still 20 or 18 or 17 or whatever and you really have nothing to show for it.”

It would all be semantics from there, as NU never came within 20 points the rest of the way despite shooting 55.2 percent in the second half, primarily because Penn State shot a blistering 62.1 percent and hit 5-of-7 from behind the arc.

Isaiah Roby finished with 17 points and Thomas Allen chipped in 11 and five assists, but no other Huskers scored more than six points in the loss. Rasir Bolten, who had been averaging 12.0 points off the bench, dropped 21 points on 8-of-12 shooting.

“The last thing I want to do is sit here and throw the kids under the bus, because that’s not fair," Miles said. "But we didn’t play hard enough, obviously. One of the words one of the guys used (after the game) was ‘lackadaisical’ early, and that was them describing themselves…

“I’m just extremely disappointed about our lack of hustle.”

Nebraska will return home on Saturday to take on No. 15 Purdue for a 3 p.m. tip on Big Ten Network.

1. The fight was never there

This was a game that carried so much importance toward Nebraska’s already slim NCAA Tournament hopes, and for the Huskers to come out with that type of effort and performance was simply inexcusable. Yes, Penn State is better than its record indicates, and the Nittany Lions are always tough to beat at home. But that doesn’t explain how NU could be completely blown out of the water without even putting up a fight. The post-Isaac Copeland identity of this team was supposed to one carried by tough, relentless defense and relying on the remaining star power it still had on offense. The defense was the worst it’s been all season, and that left an otherwise decent offensive showing completely inconsequential.

2. Nebraska’s defense failed

Penn State came into the game as the third-lowest scoring team in the Big Ten at just over 68 points per game and was the league’s worst 3-point shooting team at 31 percent on the year. The Nittany Lions hit their season scoring average with 9:33 remaining in the game, and it surpassed its average of seven made threes per outing with 13 minutes still to play. You can only chalk so much of that up to PSU having a great shooting night. Nebraska’s defensive rotations and on-ball defense, which had been so good the past few outings, were as bad as they’ve been all year. Lapses in defensive effort led to bad early fouls, which impacted how key players played on both ends the rest of the night. The Huskers have such little leeway with how inconsistent their scoring has been that when their defense fails, they’re going to struggle mightily. When their defense fails to this extent, they don’t stand a chance.

3. Watson regressed again

Palmer scored 24 points, Roby had 15, and even Allen added 11. But in a game where Nebraska needed every point it could possibly get, having Watson finish with just six points and only one assist was killer. After scoring a total of 15 points over a span of four games, the senior guard seemed to be playing his way out of the funk with back-to-back double-figure efforts the last two times out. But Watson was held scoreless in the first half on 0-of-5 shooting and accounted for just eight total points in 34 minutes of work. Nebraska is only as good as Watson plays, and his regression was directly correlated with NU’s major step back on Tuesday night. It was by no means all his fault, but he has to play well for the Huskers to win.