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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In case you missed it but, as always, we know you probably didn't miss it: Nebrasketball is going dancing. As in big dancing. As in The Big Dance. As in March Madness.

As in ... both – that's right BOTH – the Nebraska men's basketball team and the women's basketball team have all but punched their tickets to the NCAA Tournament.

Fred Hoiberg's team did that by beating the brakes off Michigan in Sunday's regular season finale to finish 22-9 overall and 12-8 in the Big Ten, putting an end to the Huskers' winless mark in Ann Arbor behind a sharpshooting performance by Keisei Tominaga that would make Barry Pepper in "Saving Private Ryan" proud. He was an absolute sniper against the Wolverines, putting the ball in the cup 13 of the 19 times he threw it up.

Purdue beat Wisconsin on Sunday, too, giving the Huskers the No. 3 seed in this week's Big Ten Tournament and clinching one of those pivotal, highly coveted double byes.

The Huskers will not play until Friday (March 15) at 8 p.m. CT in Minneapolis against either No. 6 seed Indiana, No. 11 seed Penn State or No. 14 seed Michigan. Nebraska has gone a combined 5-0 against those three teams, beating Penn State by nearly 20 points (68-49) at home a month ago (Feb. 17) while Indiana and Michigan are responsible for the Huskers' only two road conference wins of the year.

They beat Indiana by nearly identical scores at home (86-70) on Jan. 3 and on the road (85-70) on Feb. 21, and they beat the Wolverines on Sunday on the road (85-70) and at home (79-59) on Feb. 10. That's an average margin of victory of 17 points.

The Huskers will enter the league tournament with a chance to move into sole possession of second on the program's all-time single-season lists for most wins (22) and conference wins (12). They already put together their best Big Ten finish since joining the conference in 2011-12 and the program's best conference finish since tying for second in the Big Eight in 1992-93.

If Hoiberg doesn't win Big Ten Coach of the Year, we riot in the streets and burn Utica to the ground.

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

Amy Williams' group will likely be playing in the 8-9 game of the women's NCAA Tournament. Her Huskers were already a likely tournament team but became a stone-cold lock for a berth (just like the men's team) after a four-day run to Sunday's Big Ten tournament championship game.

The Huskers finished 22-11 through the conference tournament and 11-7 in the Big Ten prior to the tourney to earn a single bye with the No. 5 seed. They proceeded to run through No. 12 seed Purdue (64-56), No. 4 seed Michigan State (73-61) and No. 8 seed Maryland (78-68) before falling in overtime to No. 2 seed Iowa (94-89) on Sunday in a terrific game.

Husker stars Jaz Shelley and Alexis Markowski were both named to the All-Tournament team. Shelley set the Big Ten Tournament record for the most three-pointers (16) in one tournament.

Nebraska came within inches of upsetting Caitlin Clark and Co. to win its first Big Ten tourney title since 2014 (the year the program made its lone appearance in said title game prior to Sunday), which would have officially locked up an NCAA bid and likely pushed the Huskers all the way to a No. 6 seed in the Big Dance.

Instead, the Huskers couldn't finish off a 75-67 lead with 2:30 remaining and a three-point shot away from going up double digits, and the Hawkeyes vanquished that deficit with a pair of threes and a Clark game-tying bucket to send it to OT. The extra session was a back-and-forth adrenaline rush as both teams matched three-point shots until, ultimately, the Huskers couldn't close the door with an 87-86 lead with 1:09 left and couldn't close the gap on a 91-89 deficit with 18 seconds remaining.

Still, the Huskers will be dancing in March. Most bracketologists who analyze the women's tournament had Nebraska as a No. 8 or 9 seed entering the title game.

For the second-straight year, the Huskers have a Big Ten Champ as Ridge Lovett claimed the crown at 149 and the Nebraska wrestling team finished third at the 2024 Big Ten Championships with 118.0 team points.

The Huskers put eight wrestlers in the final, third-place and fifth-place bouts combined this weekend and clinched nine automatic bids to the NCAA Championships.

At heavyweight, No. 10 Nash Hutmacher had a successful showing, finishing sixth and securing a spot at the NCAA Tournament. Hutmacher won two straight in consolation to secure the automatic qualification. No. 5 Caleb Smith (125) finished 2-3 with an eighth-place finish to secure his spot in Kansas City. Rounding out the Huskers competing at Big Tens was No. 12 Bubba Wilson at 174. He will await a potential at-large bid for NCAAs as he finished ninth with a 3-2 record.

In a rematch of this year’s home dual against the Wolverines, No. 1 Lovett met No. 2 Austin Gomez in the finals. Gomez got the takedown in Period One, but Lovett responded with a move of his own and took a 5-3 lead to open the final period. Lovett gave up a stall point, but he hung on for the 5-4 victory and claimed the 149 Big Ten title.

At 157, after falling to Iowa’s No. 4 Jared Franek in the quarterfinals, No. 5 Peyton Robb won four straight to finish third and qualify for the NCAA Championships for the fifth time. Then at 184, No. 2 Lenny Pinto secured a third-place finish after defeating Michigan’s No. 5 Jaden Bullock in the third-place match, 4-1 and is a two-time NCAA Qualifier. Rounding out the group of third-place finishers was No. 4 Silas Allred at 197. Allred recorded four victories, including an opening tech. fall, to earn his second-straight NCAA Qualification.

In his first career Big Ten Championships, No. 4 Jacob Van Dee (133) dropped to consolation after a tough-fought match against No. 5 Aaron Nagao (PSU) in the quarterfinals and won three-straight for a spot in the third-place match. He faced Nagao again and battled, but fell by pin in the first period and finished fourth.

Both No. 4 Brock Hardy (141) and No. 5 Antrell Taylor (165) finished fifth after commanding victories in their fifth-places matches. Hardy dropped two matches on the weekend, but bounced back with a pin over Rutgers’ No. 7 Mitch Moore in his final match. Taylor had an impressive performance in his first career Big Ten Tournament, going 3-2 and earning himself a spot at the NCAA Championships.

Up next, NU has two weeks to prep for the 2024 NCAA Championships which are set for March 21-23 at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Mo.

– Recap courtesy of Nebraska Athletics Communications

Rhett "Strokes" Stokes had himself a weekend, huh?

The Huskers' first-year transfer addition from the JUCO level out of New Mexico Military Institute exploded for nine total hits in Nebraska's 2-1 series win over South Alabama.

Stokes, the team's nine-hole hitter, actually went 3-for-4 in every one of the three games against the Jaguars in the Huskers' home-opening series. That includes four doubles, five RBI and one run scored. He didn't record a walk, and he didn't strike out, either, meaning he put the ball in play all 12 times during his 9-for-12 performance in the three-game run.

Adding some extra impressiveness to Stokes' display: He even had an RBI groundout as one of the three putouts recorded against him. Stokes hit into an inning-ending fielder's choice in his first at-bat in Game 1 on Friday. He then recorded seven consecutive productive at-bats before grounding into an inning-ending double play in Sunday's Game 3 finale.

No matter. Stokes made up for that missed opportunity by coming up clutch in his next one: A two-out, two-run, game-tying single lasered up the middle in the fifth inning to officially erase a 6-1 deficit, tie the game at 6-6 and set up a six-run sixth inning as the Huskers took command with a six-run lead in an eventual 12-7 win.

In between Games 1 and 3 was a 3-for-4 day in the Huskers' 13-2 victory in Game 2 in which Stokes pushed a run across on an RBI bunt single.

Nebraska is now 9-4 overall, has won eight of its last 10 games and captured all three of its weekend series thus far against Grand Canyon (3-1), College of Charleston (3-0) and South Alabama (2-1), all three of which are potential NCAA Regional teams come season's end.

Apparently, the home confines were exactly what Stokes needed to show some juice at the plate. He raised his batting average to .455 this season with the nine-hit weekend. He made a case for Big Ten Conference Player of the Week, though he probably didn't have enough eye-popping power numbers to ultimately land that crown. But no matter. An impressive weekend that earned him the right to be in that conversation is noteworthy nonetheless.

In the conversation for the conference's Pitcher of the Week will be Husker starter Brett Sears.

Sears drove the bus in the Huskers' Game 2 win with a fourth consecutive quality start. He allowed two earned runs on just four hits with no walks allowed and seven strikeouts across eight strong innings of work. He apparently appreciated the nickname Inside Nebraska gave him last week and is evidently doing his best to make sure that nickname sticks as "Seven Sears" has now fired exactly seven strikeouts in all four of his starts. He got the job done with eye-popping efficiency, using just 88 total pitches to move his record to 2-0 this year.

Sears has been one of the best pitchers in college baseball so far this season. He now has 28 strikeouts, is allowing just a .119 opponent batting average and has surrendered just five total earned runs and two walks across 25.1 innings in his four starts. He entered Saturday's game as one of just five starting pitchers in Division I this season with 17-plus innings pitched, 21-plus strikeouts, three or fewer earned runs and less than three walks.