One last impressive crowd showed up to Pinnacle Bank Arena on Sunday for the final home game of one of the worst seasons in Nebraska basketball history.

Those fans and the Huskers’ two departing seniors were left with one last gut-punch of disappointment, however, as they fell 81-76 to Northwestern, the only team lower than them in the Big Ten Conference standings.

It was a historically bad day for NU in a handful of ways, too. Nebraska went an astounding 8-for-30 from the free-throw line and committed a season-high 21 turnovers. The Huskers’ 26.7 percent clip at the charity stripe marked the worst of any Division I team with at least 30 attempts over at least the past decade.

The loss was also NU’s 14th in a row, setting a new program record for consecutive defeats, and moved the Huskers into a tie with Northwestern for last place in the league at 2-17 each. The Wildcats’ only two league wins coming over Nebraska, giving them the head-to-head tiebreaker.

Barring a miraculous turnaround over the final two road games at Michigan and Minnesota next week, the Huskers appear destined to be the No. 14 seed in the Big Ten Tournament in Indianapolis.

"Obviously you don’t have to look too much farther than the turnovers and the free-throw shooting tonight..." NU head coach Fred Hoiberg said. "It’s contagious. I’ve been around this game long enough, when you miss a few early it seems to get in everybody’s head, and tempo gets quick and you don’t trust your stroke, and it gets hard."

Northwestern got things started early with a 16-3 run, including nine unanswered points, to take a 23-14 lead after the first eight minutes. Nebraska was able to slowly chip away and got as close as two twice before making it a 37-34 deficit on a 3-pointer by Jervay Green with 1:05 left.

But the Huskers went on to miss five straight free throws over the final 46 seconds of the half, leaving them down by three at the break. Haanif Cheatham scored 11 of his 20 points and Ouedraogo hauled in a whopping 13 rebounds in the first half, but NU also went a dismal 5-of-14 at the free-throw line.

"I think it’s been a problem for us all year," Cheatham said of NU's free-throw struggles. "I don’t know what was different today, but the ball just wasn’t going in. Free throws, 8-for-30, it’s just unacceptable. You’re just not going to win games like that...

"I guess today, I don’t know what came back and haunted us. Just the free-throw monster or something came back and told us, ‘you’re not making nothing.’"

The second half got off to another sluggish start, but Nebraska finally got things going a bit and took its first lead since the 15-minute mark of the first half on a 3-pointer by Cam Mack to make it 41-39 with 16:55 to play.

That turned into a 10-2 run for the Huskers that was capped with a breakaway dunk by Burke that pushed the lead up 47-41 two minutes later. But Northwestern responded with an 8-0 rally of its own to reclaim the lead.

Just when it seemed like NU was doomed for another late-game collapse, two 3-pointers by Cheatham sparked an 11-2 run that gave it a 67-65 lead with just over a minute to play. The Huskers couldn’t hold, though, and Pat Spencer hit two free throws to tie it at 67-67 and send the game into overtime.

The extra period couldn’t have gone much worse for Nebraska, as Northwestern opened with six unanswered points while the Huskers were all out of sorts offensive and didn’t score for the first two and a half minutes.

Burke knocked down two straight 3-pointers to get NU back to 78-76 with 44 seconds remaining, but that would be as close as it would get. The Huskers missed two more free throws and two more 3-pointers to close out the defeat.

Cheatham led NU with 20 points in his final home game as a Husker, while Ouedraogo posted 11 points and a career-high and Pinnacle Bank Arena record 19 rebounds.

Mack added 13 points and seven assists, while Miller Kopp scored a game-high 21 points to lead four Northwestern players in double figures.

Nebraska will return to action on Thursday when it travels to take on Michigan for a 5:30 p.m. CT tip on FS1.

"Obviously guys are down," Hoiberg said. "We needed that. We needed that for morale, needed it for the guys to feel good in that locker room. And you see a lot of disappointed guys, which, you should be. If you’re a competitor, you should be disappointed when you don’t come out on the winning end of a game like this."

1. That was an all-time bad free-throw performance

You only needed to look at one category on the final stat sheet to see how Nebraska lost this game.

It’s almost unbelievable that a team could be so inept at the free-throw line the way the Huskers were on Sunday. Seriously, it was as bad as we’ve ever seen it.

Per the Sports Reference play index, NU became the first team since at least 2010-11 to shoot less than 30 percent from the free-throw line on 30 or more attempts. The 26.7-percent clip at the stripe was the worst of any DI team this season and the fifth-worst over the last 10 years with a minimum of 20 attempts.

It got to the point where one of the loudest crowd roars of the night came on a Bronx cheer when Cheatham finally made a late free throw. He then missed his second attempt.

In fact, when Ouedraogo was fouled with 22 seconds left in overtime and Nebraska only down two, there was an audible groan from the fans because they already knew what was going to happen.

As expected, Ouedraogo missed both of his attempts to finish 1-of-9 on the day and all but seal the Huskers’ fate.

"It is frustrating," Hoiberg said. "We’ve tried a lot of different things this year. We really have. Maybe, I don’t know, I’ve put too many things in their heads... But this week I thought our tempo was getting better, I thought our strokes looked better overall.

"And then again, when you have a game where you have consecutive missed free throws or you miss eight out of 10 or whatever it is, it gets so mental. And everybody is thinking about it and trying to get as close to that rim as possible. And unfortunately, we had one of those games tonight, where, shoot, you make 30 percent of your free throws you win the game."

2. Ouedraogo sets more records

It’s hard to feel good about anything from Nebraska’s horrible, no good, very bad day on Sunday, but Ouedraogo – even with his eight missed free throws – was about as positive as it got.

The true freshman forward has gotten better by the game over the past month, and he once again etched his name in the NU record books with his best performance yet as a Husker.

His 19 rebounds not only set the team’s PBA record, but it also tied the highest total ever in the arena, matching the 19 by Maryland’s Bruno Fernando last season.

Ouedraogo pushed his school single-season freshman rebounding record to 191 on the year, and his 19 boards were the most by an NU freshman since at least 1986-87.

Overall, Ouedraogo hauled in the most rebounds by a Husker in a game since Aleks Maric had 19 against Missouri on Feb. 24, 2007.

He’s now averaged 8.5 points and 9.3 rebounds over the last six games and has recorded two double-doubles in the past three contests. His three double-doubles on the season are the most ever by a Nebraska freshman.

"I continue to see great growth with Yvan," Hoiberg said. "He’s been so good. You can just see his confidence. Shoot, he’s won two jump balls in a row now I think to start off the game.

"But Yvan, 10 offensive rebounds, 19 rebounds overall in a Big Ten game as a 17-year-old, that’s pretty darn impressive."

3. One last hat-tip to Haanif Cheatham

Cheatham’s 20 points don’t really mean much given the game’s final outcome, but Nebraska wouldn’t have even been as close as it was without him.

He not only scored the most points of any Husker, but he did so on a team-best 7-of-11 shooting and was 3-of-5 from 3-point range.

Nebraska was down by seven with just under five minutes to go in regulation, and then Cheatham scored seven of NU’s next nine points (including two clutch 3-pointers) to tie the game and eventually help take a 67-65 lead.

What’s almost as inexplicable as the Huskers’ free-throw shooting was that Cheatham did not attempt a single shot in overtime.

This has been a season to forget in many ways, but you have to appreciate the consistency Cheatham brought to the otherwise tumultuous Huskers on and off the court. He’s been their steadiest scorer all year, and he’s always the one to step up and face the media after tough losses.

Hopefully, Nebraska fans can appreciate what Cheatham meant to this team, because he certainly appreciates what the fans mean to this program.

"When they say there’s nothing like Nebraska, they really mean it," Cheatham said. "We had a really, really tough season. But they came and showed out every night. They came and had PBA rocking, even through our downs.

"When people say there’s no place like Nebraska, they stand by it and they mean it."