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Huskers fall flat in 73-57 blowout to Illinois

FINAL STATS

Nebraska came into Sunday night’s game vs. Illinois needing a victory not only for Big Ten Tournament seeding purposes, but in order to keep its postseason hopes alive for another day.

The Huskers ended up accomplishing neither, as they dropped a costly defeat in lopsided fashion to the Fighting Illini, 73-57, in front of a crowd of 14,236.

Senior guard Tai Webster did what he could, leading NU with 17 points, eight rebounds and five assists. The problem was Webster got little help from his teammates, as the Huskers shot 37.5 from the field and committed 18 turnovers, including 12 giveaways in the second half.

On the other side, Illinois was red-hot from behind the arc all night, knocking down 13-of-26 3-pointers - eight of which coming after halftime - while shooting 48.1 percent from the field. The most threes the Illini had made versus a Division I opponent previously this season was 11.

"How many times can you say a team just had a good night against you?" sophomore forward Michael Jacobson said. "You've got to start looking at yourselves, I guess. Look in the mirror a little bit."

With the loss, Nebraska (12-16 overall, 6-10 Big Ten) now drops below the Illini (17-12, 7-9) into a four-way tie for 10th place in the conference standings, which would puts it on the brink of playing in the opening round of games in the upcoming Big Ten Tournament.

"What I'm most concerned about is our discipline, our carelessness," NU head coach Tim Miles said. "I thought we were careless, so we lacked discipline, right? I think that'd be an easy statement to make on offense, that we lacked disciplined...

"I thought our carelessness killed us, especially on offense. There was little to no rhythm to what we were doing."

After a bit of a slow start early on, Illinois made the first move with a 13-2 run with the help of Nebraska missing nine of 10 shots and going on a 5:07 scoring drought.

The Huskers would regroup and respond with a 9-2 run of their own, with Webster capping it off with an And-1 to reclaim the lead at 22-21 with 5:49 left in the half.

One again, though, NU’s offense would go cold, this time hitting a nearly four-minute scoring drought while the Illini put together a 7-0 run. The Huskers ended up missing their last seven shots of the half and didn’t make a field goal for the final 4:31, yet still only went into halftime down 30-28.

Webster carried the load in the opening half, scoring 10 points with six rebounds and four assists in 19 minutes. No other Husker had more than four points in the half.

Things once again went south for Nebraska to start the second half, as it ended up committing as many turnovers (four) as it had shot attempts through the first five minutes and allowed Illinois to take its biggest lead yet at 44-35.

"Coach and I were talking about it, I think sometimes we get so caught up in trying to hang in the games rather than being the ones to attack first and come at them rather than sustaining punches," freshman guard Jeriah Horne said.

A 3-pointer by Tracy Abrams would put Illinois up 50-38 with 13 minutes to play, and that lead would grow to as much as 17 with just over nine minutes remaining.

"We made Tracy Abrams a star tonight," Miles said. Abrams, who came in shooting just 18 percent from 3-point range in Big Ten play, made 4-of-5 from three and finished with 13 points.

A transition jam by Morrow helped breathe some life back into the Huskers and cut the deficit down to 61-50 with 7:49 left, but that would be as close as it would get the rest of the way.

The 16-point margin of defeat matched Nebraska’s largest loss of Big Ten play, tying the 88-72 defeat to Michigan State last time out.

Malcolm Hill led Illinois with a game-high 19 points while hitting 4-of-6 from behind the arc. Junior guard Evan Taylor had nine points while sophomore forward Edward Morrow added eight points and a game-high seven rebounds off the bench.

The Huskers returns to action on Thursday when it travels to face Minnesota for a 6 p.m. tip on ESPN.

"I don't know if we're in a funk right now or what's going on, but obviously - 'disappointing' is not even the right word," Jacobson said. "You get beat like we just did on the road (at Michigan State) and have a big game ... and come out and do that is, like I said, disappointing is not the right word."

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AND-1

"To be honest, I don't know. I don't know what else you can say. I feel like we've done yelling at each other, screaming at each other, and we've done the back off and be nice to each other and try to be positive. So it's kind of hard to figure out where to go next. I know we're really running out of time here. This game was huge, and our next two (opponents) are really hot... I think we've got to look at ourselves, look in the mirror, each guy, and figure out what's going on and what they want from the rest of the season, the little bit that's left, and try to make a run."

- Sophomore forward Michael Jacobson on what Nebraska does next after two straight blowout losses

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