NU's losing skid hits 11 after blowout loss to Spartans

Thursday night’s home game against No. 25 Michigan State was unique in a few different ways, but it ended in an all too familiar result.

For the first time as a coach and a father, Nebraska head man Fred Hoiberg was on the opposing team as his eldest son, Spartan walk-on guard Jack Hoiberg, who made his first career start.

Yet the special family moment was followed by an 86-65 drubbing at Pinnacle Bank Arena, as Michigan State outscored NU 47-29 in the second half and led by as many as 24 before all was said and done.

The loss marked NU’s 11th in a row, setting a new program single-season record for consecutive defeats. The all-time record is 13 straight, which occurred over the final six games of the 1931-32 season through the first seven of 1932-33.

“It’s kind of the same old story for us,” Fred Hoiberg said. “We played with tons of energy in that first half and did the things that we needed to do… The second half, we come out, and we have three threes that hit every part of the rim and bounce out, and we miss two layups, and we’re done.”

Nebraska (7-19 overall, 2-13 Big Ten) actually got off to a decent start with an early 13-2 run to take an 15-9 lead out of the gates. But after Michigan State started 1-for-7 from behind the arc to open the game, it caught fire and hit four 3-pointers in a row to take a six-point lead of its own.

The Spartans (18-9, 10-6) controlled the majority of the half until the final two minutes, when Burke knocked down three straight 3-pointers to make it just a 39-36 halftime deficit.

Michigan State held a 28-13 rebounding edge in the first half, including a 12-4 advantage on the offensive glass, and hit nine 3-pointers. But MSU also turned the ball over 12 times, had five shots blocked, and didn’t make a free throw.

Burke, who came in shooting just 27.3 percent from 3-point range on the season, scored 18 of his team-high 21 points and was 4-of-7 from behind the arc in the opening frame.

Nebraska got within two points five minutes into the second half, but Michigan State answered with an 11-1 run to take its largest lead yet at 59-47.

The Huskers again chipped away at the deficit and got back within seven on a deep 3-pointer by Jervay Green, but the Spartans responded with two unanswered threes to push their margin up to 67-54.

It was all semantics from there, with a technical foul on Green and some zealous jeering of the officials from the crowd serving as the only real noteworthy event the rest of the way.

After pulling with 48-46 on a free throw by Haanif Cheatham, Nebraska was outscored 38-19 over the final 14:39 of the game.

“I don’t really know what was the difference,” freshman forward Yvan Ouedraogo said of the first and second halves. “It’s been like maybe seven games where we come back for the second half not with the same energy, not with the same pace.

“I don’t really know, to be honest. We just keep going, but when we have a bad stretch, we just stop playing. That’s definitely been a problem. We have to figure that out.”

Cheatham finished with 14 points and five steals, and Ouedraogo added 10 points and a team-high seven rebounds. Cassius Winston led MSU with a game-high 23 points and six assists, while Xavier Tillman posted a double-double with 10 points and 11 boards.

Michigan State shot 51.6 percent from the field and made 13-of-27 3-pointers, which helped negate a whopping 22 turnovers on the night. Nebraska, on the other hand, shot just 34.8 percent overall and 25 percent from behind the arc, including going 3-of-18 on threes in the second half.

The Huskers will return to action on Monday night when they travel to take on Illinois for a 7 p.m. CT tip on Big Ten Network.

“There was frustration tonight,” Hoiberg said. “Obviously, I got kind of heated a couple times. It’s just the frustration of not being able to hold together and hang in there when we go through those tough stretches. Teams will bury you when you have that, and it’s happened to us too many times. That’s the frustration. We are where we are.”

1. Nebraska wasted another opportunity

Yes, Nebraska has now lost 19 games on the season and 11 in a row, but it’s not like the Huskers haven’t had multiple chances to turn a couple of those into victories.

Thursday night was another example of the table being set for NU to pick up a desperately needed win and failing to capitalize on the opportunity.

Despite a fairly impressive final box score, Michigan State hardly played its best game. It turned the ball over a whopping 22 times, five of which from star point guard Winston, and scored just four fast-break points.

But Nebraska only converted 16 points off of those 22 turnovers and pretty much negated that advantage by letting MSU score 12 second-chance points on 16 offensive rebounds. The Huskers were also a dismal 16-of-35 at the rim, while Michigan State recorded just two blocked shots.

As a result, the Spartans became just the sixth Division-I team this season to win a game despite committing 20-plus turnovers, and they scored the fewest points out of that group in doing so.

2. Mack, Thorbjarnarson's struggles were costly

Nebraska has more than enough problems to deal with in any given game, so having such off nights from critical players like Cam Mack and Thorir Thorbjarnarson is pretty much detrimental.

Two of NU’s primary sources of offense this season, Mack and Thorbjarnarson combined to score just seven points on 3-of-19 shooting and were 0-for-7 on 3-pointers.

They were still able to provide some help in other areas. Mack only had two points but added a game-high six assists, six rebounds, and three steals. Thorbjarnarson had five points but chipped in five rebounds.

Still, the Huskers are just not deep or talented enough right now to have their best players go cold like that in the same game. Had NU gotten even close to a normal output out of those two, tonight could have been a much different story.

3. Izzo provides a special moment for Hoiberg family

Sometimes there’s more to sports than just the outcome of a game, and Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo exemplified that to perfection with his impressive gesture to the entire Hoiberg family.

Jack Hoiberg had never played more than 13 minutes in a game during his nearly three years with the program, but Izzo decided to give the redshirt sophomore guard his first career start in his first-ever game competing against his dad.

Jack ended up playing five minutes and matched his career-high with five points, all of which he scored after checking back in for the final three minutes.

After getting fired from the Chicago Bulls job, Fred Hoiberg spent a lot of time around the Michigan State program and developed a close friendship with Izzo in the process.

That mutual respect was no more evident than it was on Thursday night, as Izzo decided that a nice gesture to his friend and Big Ten colleague was worth a temporary disadvantage.

“I didn't tell Fred,” Izzo said of starting Jack. “I talked about it with my staff two days ago, and I talked myself out of it because you don’t want to interrupt—we’re not playing the greatest right now. But as I was riding here, believe it or not, I said to myself, as a coach, in this day and with all the social media, a coach can never do what he wants to do. He’s always got to do things for everybody else.

“So I told my staff I’m going to start Jack because it’s the right thing to do. This kid has given me almost three years, every single day. For Jack, the kid’s a pretty good player. I’m so proud of that kid and what he’s done, the kind of student, the kind of person and the kind of player. Every day he brings it. It wasn’t just do it for Fred, it was do it for Jack because it’s the right thing to do. Even if we had lost it would have been the right thing to do.”