Huskers snap losing skid with 62-61 win over Gophers

Nebraska had lost seven straight games and hadn’t tasted victory in a full month, leaving Wednesday night’s home tilt vs. Minnesota as much in the must-win category as any yet on its schedule.

It took every second of the game clock and a few fortuitous breaks down the stretch, but the Huskers finally found themselves on the right side of the scoreboard again with a 62-61 win.

James Palmer Jr. scored a game-high 24 points, but it was his two free throws with just 1.1 seconds left on the clock that sealed the deal.

Glynn Watson, who had scored a total of 15 points over the previous four games, broke out of his slump with 19 points and NU shot 50 percent from the field as a team, its highest percentage since beating Creighton (53.3) on Dec. 8, 2018.

As a result, NU improved its record to 14-11 overall and 4-10 in Big Ten Conference play and at least kept itself in the conversation for one last NCAA Tournament push.

“It definitely feels good for us,” Palmer said of the victory. “We’ve been working hard. We lost seven in a row, but even in practice we still were going harder and harder each and every time. We just wanted to focus and come out with a defensive mentality…

“We were just desperate for a win.”

Palmer scored the first basket of the game to give Nebraska the early lead, but that was followed by a 10-0 run by Minnesota (16-9, 6-8) that saw the Huskers go nearly five minutes without another point.

Palmer would finally breathe some life into the offense by scoring 10 points in a 14-2 rally that put NU back in front at 22-21, and Nebraska went on to make 10 of 14 shots, including seven in a row.

After their awful start, the Huskers ended up making nine of their final 11 shot attempts and went 52 percent from the field despite going 1-of-7 from 3-point range. The bad news was Minnesota was just as hot, shooting 50 percent and taking a 31-30 halftime lead on a 3-pointer by Dupree MacBrayer with 40 seconds left.

“We were more relaxed; we fought back,” head coach Tim Miles said. “I told the guys if you’re going to get down, to get down early when we were down 10 or whatever it was, and Thomas Allen kind of looked at me and said, ‘Yeah, that makes sense.’ I didn’t really mean it, but we’re still trying to convince you guys that we’re going to win this thing.”

Nebraska kept the hot shooting going by making its first three 3-pointers to open the second half while Minnesota missed its first six shots, giving the Huskers their biggest lead of the night at 39-32. But NU would eventually cool off and the Gophers countered with a 9-0 run to reclaim the lead at 44-41 with just over 14 minutes left to play.

The teams went back and forth over the next 10 minutes until a basket by Isaiah Roby pushed Nebraska’s lead up to 59-55 with 4:06 remaining. The Huskers would again go cold at the worst time, though, as a three-minute scoring drought allowed the Gophers to tie it back up at 59-59 with 1:20 to go.

Jordan Murphy scored with a minute left to give UM the lead, and Palmer made one of two free throws on the other end to leave it a 61-60 Gopher advantage with 46.7 on the clock. Minnesota bled 20 seconds off the clock on its ensuing possession, but Roby was able to draw a charge on Murphy to give Nebraska a chance to win with 20.9 to play.

After a Thomas Allen layup was blocked out of bounds, Palmer was fouled on a jumper along the baseline with just 1.1 remaining. The senior buried both free throws to put the game away, as Minnesota’s last-second inbound heave didn’t even result in a shot attempt.

“Really, really, really, really disappointed,” Minnesota head coach Richard Pitino said. “Really disappointed with the way that game ended. I can’t say it any clearer. But with that, my guys showed heart, my guys fought, and it’s unfortunate the way that ended. Absolutely unfortunate the way that ended.”

Palmer and Watson combined to score 43 of Nebraska’s 62 points on 15-of-26 shooting (57.6 percent). Murphy led UM with 19 points and 13 rebounds, while Daniel Oturu added 16 points.

Amir Coffey, who lit Nebraska up for a career-high 32 points and shot 17 free throws in the first meeting back in December, ended up with 11 on 4-of-10 shooting and did not go to the line once.

The Huskers will look to keep the momentum going on Saturday when they play host to Northwestern for a 7:30 p.m. CT tip on Big Ten Network.

“I think what was interesting is a few of those guys, you could see there was some relief, and then James Palmer is talking to them, and they’re like, ‘Hey, we need to build on this going into Northwestern. We need to get ready for this (next) game,’” Miles said of the mood in the locker room after the win.

“I thought that was a lot of leadership and a lot of maturity, and that really did my heart well.”

1. Palmer came up big in the clutch

Palmer’s 24-point night was the latest in a long line of his strong scoring performances, but his final two were some of his most important of the season. After missing the first of two free throws 45 seconds earlier to leave Nebraska trailing by one, the senior stepped to the line with a chance to win, tie, or lose the game with 1.1 on the clock. No Husker – coach or player – said anything to him before the shots.

“Not a word,” Miles said. “All we did was talk about, after he made the second one, how we were going to defend the out-of-bounds play.”

Palmer calmly made his first attempt to tie it, and Minnesota called a timeout to try and ice him. But NU already knew it was all for not.

“I just knew if he made the first one, we were going to win that game. I didn’t really talk to him; I just let him focus in… I didn’t have a doubt.”

2. Watson finally bounced back

No player enjoyed Wednesday night’s victory more than Watson, and no player needed a game like that more than him, either. The senior was going through his worst slump of the season, scoring just 15 total points on 6-of-37 shooting (16.2 percent and making just one of 18 3-point attempts over the previous four outings. But Watson was back to his old self vs. Minnesota, scoring 19 points on 8-of-16 from the field for his best scoring output since dropping 19 in NU’s win over Penn State nine games earlier.

“I just stayed with it, kept working and the guys found me, and things like that,” Watson said. “I just found the rhythm and got it going.”

3. The bench did its part

Nebraska’s bench managed just six points against Minnesota, but the all-around contributions of the Husker reserves were felt in a big way. Freshman Amir Harris had one of his most impactful games of the year despite not scoring a point, finishing with three rebounds, a block and a steal for a team-high +/- rating of 12. Then there was freshman Brady Heiman, who scored four points in 10 minutes with a +/- of nine, the second-highest on the team. Even sophomore Thorir Thorbjarnarson gave some quality playing time, making his only shot with two rebounds and a block in six minutes of work. The starters carried the bulk of the load of offense, as they should, but NU’s bench was key in pulling out that win.