Advertisement
basketball Edit

Huskers hit new low in 93-57 record loss to Michigan

FINAL STATS

In the final sendoff for its lone senior Tai Webster, Nebraska ended up with its worst home performance in program history in an 93-57 loss to Michigan on Sunday night.

The Wolverines came out firing from the opening tip and didn’t let up the entire game, hitting 14 3-pointers while standout guard Derrick Walton put up 18 points and set a school record with 16 assists.

As a result, the Huskers were handed a 36-point drubbing, marking their largest home loss in school history, passing its 79-45 defeat to Ohio State on Jan. 21, 2012.

It was also their fourth straight loss by 15 points or more, the longest such streak since 1989-90.

Nebraska ends the 2016-17 regular season at 12-18 overall and 6-12 in Big Ten play, marking its lowest overall win total in five years under head coach Tim Miles.

"That was absolutely not the team that we envision," Miles said. "Our guys, we talked about after the game game having a crisis of confidence. But this is beyond that. There's a defeatism almost that, and some of the guys have talked about it, as soon as the first thing goes wrong, we expect the worst to happen.

"That's not competitive. That's not a competitive mindset. That's really got to be our job and our M.O. here between now and when we get to the Big Ten Tournament. We have to be mentally stronger. We cannot allow those fears, worries, doubt, whatever, creep in, because it looks like a team walking around ready to get hit by lighting. That can't be us."

The game couldn’t have gotten off to a much uglier start for Nebraska, as it committed six turnovers in the span of four minutes while Michigan knocked down four of its first five 3-pointers to go on a 14-0 run.

The Wolverines would eventually push their lead to 30-17 on a jumper by Zak Irvin with 7:49 to go, and that lead got as big as 20 on a layup by Irvin 2:15 left in the half.

Michigan would eventually go into halftime with a commanding 45-29 lead, having made 8-of-15 3-pointers and shooting 59.3 percent from the field as a whole.

Walton ended up dishing out nine assists - setting a season-high - in the first alone, while the Wolverines rebounded seven of their 11 misses.

“Derrick Walton was excellent," Miles said. "I just voted him first-team all-league today before the game, and then had complete regret for putting karma on ourselves for that.”

Nebraska, on the other hand, ended up turning the ball over 10 times in the first 20 minutes, resulting in 14 Michigan points.

Things only got worse in the second half, as Michigan hit 18-of-27 shots (66.7 percent) with six more 3-pointers after halftime and ended up taking its biggest lead of the night at 38 with just over two minutes left to play.

“Yeah," Webster said when asked if he too saw a "defeatism" within the team during the game. "I think it was obvious.”

The Huskers, who had a chance to lock up the No. 10 seed in next week’s Big Ten Tournament with a win, ended up committing 16 turnovers overall and shot just 28.6 percent from the field in the second half.

Webster finished his final home game with eight points and five assists, snapping his streak of 30 straight games scoring in double figures.

NU will now be the 12th seed and face No. 13 Penn State in the first round on Wednesday in Washington, D.C. That game is scheduled to tip-off at 3:30 p.m. CT and will be televised nationally on ESPN2.

"Personally, I won't forget this," said freshman forward Isaiah Roby, who scored a career-high 10 points to lead NU. "This feeling sucks. I didn't want to have this feeling at all this year, and to have it now at the end, it's even worse. I know everybody in the locker room feels the same way. Yeah, we're young, but this isn't acceptable at all anywhere."

Advertisement

AND-1

“I’m not worried about my job. I’m worried about coaching these guys and getting us better. My administrators have supported me the whole time and have been there to support us, whether it be at the games or at practice. I’m not worried about that. I’m worried about getting this team’s butts in gear. That’s really what we have to do.”

-Head coach Tim Miles on the status of his job security at Nebraska

Advertisement