After three consecutive losses to Big Ten opponents, the vibes surrounding the Nebraska men's basketball team weren't good heading into the weekend.

Trying to flip the narrative and turn things around, Fred Hoiberg's Huskers were in College Park, Maryland, on Sunday to play the Maryland Terrapins. But the season turnaround will have to wait at least one more game as Nebraska lost 69-66.

That was a potential Quad 1 win that would be nice to have come the end of the season. The Terps currently have a NET rating of 25.

The fourth-straight defeat puts the Huskers' overall record to 12-6, which includes a 2-5 mark against Big Ten competition. Maryland improves to 14-5, 4-4 and is now 12-1 at home.

One of the louder storylines during this losing streak has been Nebraska's poor defense, specifically around the perimeter. On Sunday, the 3-point barrage from opponents continued.

With the Huskers' defensive rotations a step late, Maryland shot 40% from behind the arc, going 10-of-25. Add the Terps' 10 3s to the 17 from Iowa, the 19 from Purdue and the 12 from Rutgers, Nebraska's last four opponents have have shot 47% from 3, making 58-of-122.

And Nebraska's struggles with efficiency in the paint continued again. The Huskers went 11-of-23 on layups. Against Rutgers, Nebraska went just 9-of-18 on layups. Against Iowa, that mark was 15-of-27.

"We missed a couple wide-open, point-blank layups — you have to finish those on the road. And we missed some free throws down the stretch, again," Nebraska head coach Fred Hoiberg told Huskers Radio Network following the game. The Huskers went just 6-of-11 at the line.

Turnovers reared their ugly head once more, too. Nebraska committed 13 for the game and they were what caused a slow start offensively — nine came in the first half.

It was a game inside an empty and sleepy XFINITY Center that saw Nebraska's Brice Williams held in check. The 6-foot-7 guard, who over the previous 21 games dating back to last season was averaging 19.1 points per game, finished Sunday's outing with 14 points and struggled from the field, going 6-of-14 overall and 0-of-3 from 3. He only took, and made, two free throws.

Nebraska's best secondary scorer, Connor Essegian, was held to six points from two 3s off the bench after netting 12 against Rutgers and 17 in the second half at Purdue.

Sunday's game was a back-and-forth affair that saw six lead changes. After trailing 37-35 at halftime, a 3 from both Berke Buyuktuncel and Essegian tied the game at 54. Nebraska gained its first lead of the second half on an Ahron Ulis free throw, 55-54.

But Maryland had a bag full of responses, especially from Ja'Kobi Gillespie, who's fourth 3 of the game capped a 10-0 run that put the Terps up 64-55 in the blink of an eye. Gillespie finished with a game-high 22 points and went 5-of-9 from 3.

But then a Husker scoring drought happened.

Nebraska trailed 66-57 at the under-4 media timeout. At that point, Maryland was on a 12-2 run the last 5 minutes. Nebraska missed its last five shots, hit just one of its previous 12 attempts and didn't score in 2:44.

But the game wasn't over then.

The Huskers kept fighting, kept playing, and went on a run of their own, 11-2, that included 9 straight points, two of which came at the free-throw line from Williams, which tied the game at 66 with 1:02 left.

But Nebraska's 13th and final turnover came at a crucial time, with 28 seconds left, when Ulis, who had a career-high 10 assists, tried to get the ball back to Williams after he stopped his dribble at the top of the arc. Maryland stole the pass and Williams was forced to foul.

Maryland wound up hitting one of two free throws to go up 69-66, and Hoiberg elected to not call a timeout down 3 with possession of the ball and 20 seconds left. The Huskers' final possession was clunky and ended with Essegian taking a desperation 3 through a couple defenders.

Hoiberg took the blame for the final possession.

"That last possession was disappointing. We had an action called, we had two guys in the wrong spot, and I have to call a timeout if we're not organized like that. So put that on me on that last action," Hoiberg said. "I still thought Connor might come off of that on a little get, and we were coming into a ball screen."

While it's a fourth-straight loss and his team is still winless against conference competition on the road, Hoiberg said he liked the fight his team showed. The Huskers trailed by 9 points, 64-55, with 6:47 left in the game and came back to tie the Terps with 1:02 remaining.

"I’m not into moral victories, but it's growth on the effort," Hoiberg said. "I didn't love our start, but we settled down. We had six turnovers in the first five minutes, and after that I think we were pretty good at taking care of the ball, we knew we had to do that. The effort was there. ...That's big for our team to know we can do this, know we can compete on the road."

Nebraska overcame a poor and sloppy start to the game to turn a 16-9 deficit into a 31-26 lead in the first half thanks in large part to the bench players. Nebraska held a 34-8 edge in bench points and was at 20-4 in that category at the half.

Forward Andrew Morgan was a bright spot. The 6-10 North Dakota State transfer scored 12 points in the first half and started his day by hitting his first five shots while giving Maryland's star freshman big, Derik Queen, problems.

Morgan ended with 17 points and five rebounds, though he went 3-of-6 from the free-throw line and had three turnovers. Morgan and Buyuktuncel were the Husker bigs in the second half as starting 5 Braxton Meah did not play in the second half after a first half where he played 4 minutes.

Guard Ahron Ulis also had a strong day. He dished off five assists in 12 first-half minutes of action and had a plus/minus of plus-5 at the half. Ulis was at plus-6 at the end of the game and had two steals, but he struggled with his own offense and was 1-of-6 from the field.

"I thought Ahron was outstanding. You look at his 10 assists and one turnover, that's not easy against that defense," Hoiberg said.

Sam Hoiberg scored 8 points in the loss but didn't miss a shot — he was 3-of-3 from the field and made both his 3-point attempts — and had a team-best plus-7.

Nebraska's next opportunity to turn around the season will be Wednesday night at home as it welcomes USC to Lincoln for an 8 p.m. tip inside Pinnacle Bank Arena.

USC will come into that game with a record of 11-7, 3-4. The Trojans are coming off an 84-69 loss at home to No. 24 Wisconsin, but is a dangerous team. They already have two conference road wins, which include victories at No. 13 Illinois (82-72) and Washington (85-61).

"Looking forward to getting back. Students are back in town now, and it's a huge game for us," Hoiberg said. "We have to come out and play with great energy and find a way to get one."

Saint Thomas, a Omaha (Neb.) Millard North product who spent the first two seasons of his college basketball career at Loyola Chicago before playing last season at Northern Colorado, is averaging 11 points, 6.1 rebounds, 4.1 assists and 1.4 steals for USC this season.

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