Nebraska Weekly: Weekend review, what's on tap, milestones & latest reports

Welcome to Nebraska Weekly! Every week in February, this is where we will review the biggest highlights of Nebraska's weekend, preview what lies ahead for Husker Athletics and – whenever possible – touch on any of the latest reports and rumors on Nebraska football, basketball, volleyball, baseball and more.

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The biggest story going right this very moment in Husker Athletics is Fred Hoiberg's Huskers and their quest to reach the NCAA Tournament. That group easily breezed past Rutgers on Sunday, 67-56, to almost certainly ensure itself of a bid to the Dance. That's pretty much a lock. Now it's all about playing for seeding. Or, at least it should be.

Seeding, that is, for the NCAA Tournament AND the Big Ten Tournament. The Huskers are currently sitting in the spot for the No. 4 seed and are in line to earn one of those pivotal double byes. Things are certainly trending up.

And if you're like most people (including this writer) about all of the different Big Ten tiebreaker scenarios with a week remaining, then head over to the Insider's Board where our subscribers are taking a look at seeding and debating all of the the latest Bracketology updates. Fair warning: Might need to get your takes and your analytical numbers ready before you enter into the debate zone.

On the other side of the court, the Husker women have been having a tremendous season as well. Amy Williams' crew is trending toward an NCAA Tournament bid, but they did take a stinger on Sunday. The Huskers fell on the road to Illinois, 74-73, after battling back from a seven-point halftime deficit to take a seven-point lead in the fourth quarter, but Jaz Shelley's three-point heave at the buzzer was off mark. Nebraska finished the regular season 19-10 overall and 11-7 in the Big Ten.

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Here are our other top three stories of the weekend in Husker Athletics:

Other than Husker Hoops, the other big story in Nebraska sports right now is Will Bolt's red-hot group.

Bolt's Nebraska baseball program shot itself in the foot during a 1-2 start, but the Huskers have bounced back in a major way by rattling wins in six of their past seven games.

Nebraska got the job done in a 3-1 series victory over Grand Canyon two weeks ago, plating at least seven runs in all three wins (and even scoring five runs in a 7-5 loss). This weekend, the Huskers were even more impressive considering the circumstances.

Nebraska traveled to South Carolina to square off with College of Charleston. Things looked bleak early, and you could say that about all three games. The Huskers fell behind 5-1 in Game 1 on Thursday and entered the ninth inning facing that same deficit. They trailed 4-1 in Game 2 on Saturday through seven innings and faced a 4-3 deficit entering the ninth. Nebraska trailed 3-0 after three innings in Game 3 on Sunday and got the game knotted at 3-3 entering the ninth.

The Huskers won all three of those games.

Pull out a win in one of those three? Acceptable. Solid

Two wins in that scenario? Very remarkable and momentous.

Winning all three? Incredible.

Now, the Huskers will enjoy an extended stay in Lincoln. After the traditional road schedule to open the year in February (all 10 of those games were on the road), the 'Skers hold their home opener on Friday to begin a three-game series against South Alabama (10-2) this coming weekend. The Jags are coming off their own impressive run, having won three of their last four games by one run each – including a walk-off hit batsman in the 11th inning on Sunday.

The Husker softball program is on the opposite end of the spectrum compared to the baseball team right now. Rhonda Revelle's group has now lost seven of its last nine games after appearing to have rebounded a bit following Jordy Bahl's injury to hang tough with a 6-3 start.

Nebraska is now 8-10 after it lost all four games in its own Big Red Invitational over the weekend. The Huskers went 0-2 against Wichita State (7-1 on Friday; 17-4 on Saturday) and 0-2 against No. 14-ranked Missouri (10-6 on Saturday; 5-1 on Sunday).

Both the Husker men and women's gymnastics team enjoyed great days on Sunday, the men in Berkeley as part of the California Quad and the women in Lincoln in a quad meet as well.

The Nebraska men's team, ranked No. 5 in the country, finished second in the quad meet competing against three teams ranked inside the top 15 nationally. The Huskers finished with 408.150 points as No. 2-ranked Stanford narrowly won the event (410.450 points) with No. 8 California coming in third place (394.850 points) and No. 15 Air Force finishing fourth (386.800).

Cooper Giles on pommel horse (14.20) and Sam Phillips in the all-around (80.20) both earned event titles for the Huskers, who had seven gymnasts record personal records at the meet.

The women's gymnastics team, meanwhile, netted a season-best 197.125 points to capture the first-place title at its own quad meet over North Carolina, Southeast Missouri State and Illinois State at the Bob Devaney Center.

The Huskers also finished with at least a tie in every event title: Martina Comin on vault (9.850), Emma Spence on bars (9.925), Isabel Sikon, Allie Gard and Ayzhia Hall on beam (9.875) and Sophia McClelland and Comin on floor (9.925). Spence also claimed the all-around title with a 39.475 that tied her season high.

The Huskers also posted or tied seven career highs: Whitney Jencks on bars (9.900) and floor (9.850), Emma Simpton on bars (9.900), Sikon on beam (9.875), Gard on beam (9.875), Comin on floor (9.925) and McClelland on floor (9.925).

Along with registering its best team score of the season, NU earned its highest beam (49.300) and floor (49.450) total and tied its season-high bars total (49.425).

The Nebraska beach volleyball team's season is in full swing, which was most recently highlighted with five matches over the weekend at the Tiger Beach Challenge in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Things didn't start well for the Huskers, who started the beach season 6-0 but dropped three straight matches on Saturday to begin the Baton Rouge tournament. They fell to Texas A&M Corpus-Christi (4-1), North Alabama (5-0) and No. 7-ranked LSU (5-0).

After the initial tourney struggles, though, the Huskers got back to their winning ways on Sunday with wins over Central Arkansas (5-0) and Houston Christian (3-2) to improve to 8-3 this year.

Lexi Rodriguez and Lindsay Krause won 21-13, 21-17 as the Huskers' No. 1 pair during the morning match against Central Arkansas while Bergen Reilly and Ally Batenhorst earned a 21-11, 21-12 victory. Merritt Beason and Skyler Pierce then held on for a 21-13, 19-21, 15-11 win, Laney Choboy and Harper Murray rallied to win their No. 4 match 19-21, 21-17, 15-4, and Olivia Mauch and Andi Jackson also won in three sets 15-21, 21-16, 15-10.

Nebraska then pulled out a thrilling comeback win after digging itself a 2-0 hole against Houston Christian.

The Huskers won the final three matches with all three going the three-set distance: Jackson and Mauch got Nebraska on the board with a 22-20, 10-21, 17-15 win, Reilly and Batenhorst picked up a 21-15, 16-21, 15-10 victory to tie the match, and Choboy and Murray rallied again after dropping set one to clinch the match with a 15-21, 21-15, 18-16 victory.

Next up, Nebraska will travel to paradise to compete in the Hawaii-hosted Queen's Cup in Honolulu. The Huskers will kick things off against No. 10-ranked host school Hawaii at 1 p.m. CT on Thursday before wrapping up the day against Pepperdine at 7:15 p.m. CT

Friday matches follow against Chaminade (3:30 p.m. CT) and St. Mary's (6 p.m CT) ahead of the final day of the tournament on Saturday, which will feature the quarterfinal matches (1 or 2:15 p.m.) semifinal matches (3:30 or 4:45 p.m.) and then the medal round (6:00 or 7:15 or 8:30 p.m.)