Huskers hit new low in 87-63 blowout loss to Northwestern

On the heels of four straight down-to-the-wire losses, Nebraska extended its prolonged losing streak in maybe its most embarrassing fashion of the season on Saturday afternoon.

Northwestern came into Pinnacle Bank Arena and dominated every aspect of the game from the opening tip until the final buzzer, handing the Huskers an 87-63 defeat that was never in doubt.

Led by 27 points from Boo Buie, the Wildcats shot 48.3 percent from the field, hit 13 3-pointers, dished out 14 assists, and scored 22 points off 15 NU turnovers to improve to 11-10 overall, and 4-8 in Big Ten play.

All of that pushed Nebraska’s losing streak to 12 in a row. The Huskers, who have now dropped 15 of their last 16 games. fell to 6-17 and 0-12 on the year.

Nebraska sputtered out of the gates on both ends of the floor, and Northwestern quickly capitalized by hitting nine straight shots and breaking the game open with a 22-5 run to go up 30-15.

After starting the day 2-of-8 from behind the arc, the Wildcats ended up making 10 of their 23 3-point attempts in the first half and went into halftime with a commanding 49-27 lead.

Their 10 made threes in the first half surpassed their season average (8.2) with another 20 minutes still to play.

It didn’t get any better after the break, either.

Northwestern pushed its lead up to 32 after the first 10 minutes of the second half. That margin grew to 87-52 on an And-1 layup by Buie with 6:01 to go.

The Wildcats didn’t score for the final 4:53 and still won by 24 points.

C.J. Wilcher led Nebraska with 15 points off the bench, and Bryce McGowens finished with 10 as the only other Husker to score in double figures.

"I did not anticipate us coming out like that," NU head coach Fred Hoiberg said. "We came in this morning, I thought we were sharp in our morning walk-through and thought that would carry over to the game, but obviously it didn't."

1. What more can even be said?

From the start, Nebraska’s 2021-22 season has been an unmitigated disaster. But what we witnessed on Saturday was somehow the lowest point yet.

This one was much different from the back-to-back humiliations suffered against Michigan and Auburn in early December. Those teams were expected to win big, and Auburn is one of the best teams in the country.

Northwestern, however, was only just ahead of the Huskers in the cellar of the Big Ten standings. The Wildcats were slight favorites coming in, but they looked like they were in a completely different class than NU in every aspect.

Northwestern made crisp passes, moved without the ball, crashed for offensive rebounds, and played with the necessary energy and focus to win a Big Ten road game.

Nebraska didn’t do any of those things on Saturday, and it left plenty more to be desired in several other critical areas as well.

The one thing that could be said during NU’s extended losing streak, at least over the previous four games, was that the Huskers fought hard enough to have a chance to win in the final minutes.

Today, it looked like they didn’t even want to be out there.

A few fans let out boos as the teams left the court at the end of the first half with NU down 22. Those who stuck around until the final horn offered up a few more, but mostly it was silence.

"The overall urgency early in that game was the thing that was so disappointing to me," head coach Fred Hoiberg said. "In our home building, in an afternoon game on reunion weekend, you want to give your alumni something to cheer about and be proud about, and we were awful in that area tonight."

2. Where was the defense?

Nebraska had plenty of problems on offense, but nothing was more glaring about its performance against Northwestern than its awful play defensively.

To be fair, Northwestern did come in as one of the higher-scoring teams in the Big Ten at 75.3 points per game. But the Huskers made NW look like the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors from behind the arc.

The Wildcats averaged 8.2 made 3-pointers a contest on the year and had 10 in the first 20 minutes. Buie hit four of his six threes in the first half and had passed his season scoring average (14.8) by halftime.

As has been the case so many times over the past three years, Nebraska made life far too easy for its opponent with lazy, slow defensive rotations that frequently left Northwestern with wide-open looks.

Eight Wildcats scored at least four points, and five players scored at least nine en route to a whooping 32 bench points. That helped NW eclipse its 75.3 ppg average with 9:17 still on the clock.

Nebraska also gave up nine offensive rebounds (eight in the first half) and 36 points in the paint to a Wildcat team hardly known for its size and physicality in the frontcourt.

3. What more can be done?

In trying to find words for another terrible loss, Hoiberg said he couldn’t wait to see which of his players returned to Nebraska’s next practice on Monday “ready to compete.”

“We’ll see who’s ready to compete on Monday morning,” Hoiberg said. “Those that are ready to compete, those are the ones who are going to play moving forward.”

But what more can Hoiberg and his staff do with the Huskers’ lineup that they haven’t already tried to no avail?

Nebraska has already used multiple starting lineups, benched players who didn’t run the offense the way they were supposed to, and tried several combinations at the end of games to find its closers.

Yet none of those roster tweaks did much of anything to change the consistent issues of effort, poor execution, and attention to detail that we’ve seen since the season opener.

So what will Monday’s next practice actually show?

The reality is that the Huskers are what they are - a team that, on some nights, is going to play hard enough to win but likely find a way to lose in the final minutes.

In other games, they’ll look like they don’t even want to be out on the floor playing together.

No tough practices or starting lineup adjustments will change that at this point.