One of the storylines surrounding Nebraska's Thursday night home game against the No. 25 Maryland Terrapins was how the Huskers would adapt without their injured starting power forward, Berke Büyüktuncel, with Maryland bigs Julian Reese and Derik Queen in town.

But just before tip-off, it was revealed Nebraska would be even more at a disadvantage against Kevin Willard's Terps. During his pregame radio show, Nebraska head coach Fred Hoiberg said Brice Williams and Connor Essegian were battling illness on Thursday and would each be game-time decisions.

Williams and Essegian played, but neither looked right on the court. Maryland took advantage of the short-handed Huskers and left Pinnacle Bank Arena with an 83-75 win, snapping Nebraska's four-game win streak.

Nebraska's record drops to 16-9 overall and 6-8 against Big Ten competition while Maryland improves to 19-6, 9-5.

Without Büyüktuncel there to help, Maryland's two talented bigs — the 6-foot-10, 246-pound freshman and future NBA lottery pick, Queen, and the 6-9, 252-pound senior, Reese — got theirs. Both recorded double-doubles: Queen with 24 points and 11 rebounds (five offensive) and Reese with 13 points and 12 rebounds (three).

Nebraska's defense was a step slow and had trouble, especially late in the game when stops were needed, staying in front of Maryland guards Selton Miguel (17 points), Ja'Kobi Gillespie (15) and Rodney Rice (14).

Nebraska trailed basically the entire game — Maryland led for 35:28 of the 40 minutes — but did keep itself within arm's reach. A lot of that had to do with the play of Williams, Juwan Gary and Andrew Morgan.

Gary scored a team-high 22 points and made three 3s and three free throws while Morgan scored 15 points before fouling out. With Büyüktuncel out and Morgan picking up his fourth foul with 8:23 left before eventually fouling out, much of the heavy lifting on Queen fell on the 6-7, 226-pound Gary, who was giving up around four inches and 20 pounds.

"Certainly we missed Berke out there for size on him (Queen)," Hoiberg said. "I thought our guys battled. But that size, length, skill set that he has, that's hard to battle when you're down one of your 6-10 guys."

Said Gary: "We just had no edge. I just felt that the first half we had no edge.The second half coming out, we didn't have an edge either."

Essegian played only nine minutes and went didn't make a shot, going 0-of-6 from the field and 0-of-4 from 3. After the game, Hoiberg talked about just how sick Williams and Essegian were.

As it turns out, neither were at the pre-game walk-through or morning film session. It wasn't pretty. Hoiberg said the team is doing "preventative things" to stop the sickness from spreading to the rest of the team.

"The biggest thing was low energy and fatigue and body aches. That's really what they were experiencing," Hoiberg said of Williams and Essegian. "...Got a call this morning from our trainer that Brice had reached out, and he had a tough night. Didn't sleep, had chills pretty much all night long. Came in, got an IV before the game and said he was good to go.

"Connor, you could see it in his face, thought he was really flushed. It's hard to go out there and play against a team with those kind of athletes and those kind of shot-makers when you're not 100 percent, but I'm proud of those guys for giving it an effort."

Even with the sickness, Williams battled. He played a team-high 39 minutes and scored 20 points, 12 of which came in the second half. His 3 with 8:44 left cut Maryland's lead to 3, 62-59. It wasn't an efficient night for the 6-7 guard as he went 5-of-13 from the field and 3-of-9 from 3, but he was perfect from the charity stripe, going 7-of-7.

With bigs like Reese and Queen defending the paint, their presence may have accelerated the internal clocks of the Huskers, who went 8-of-16 on layups. Reese finished with two blocks and altered many attempts in the paint.

And once Maryland got the rebound, it was off to the races, which cut down on the opportunities for Nebraska's defense to get set. Maryland outscored the Huskers 12-5 in fast-break points and shot 58.5%, becoming only the third team to shoot over 50% against Nebraska this season.

"I thought we were rushed at the rim," Hoiberg said after the game. "We talked about making smart plays at the rim. I thought that fueled their break a little bit."

Williams scoring 20 points marks his fifth straight 20-point game. That matches the most by a Husker in the Big Ten era, joining Keisei Tominaga in 2023.

Next up for Nebraska are back-to-back road tests at Northwestern (13-12, 4-10) on Sunday and Penn State (13-12, 3-11) on Wednesday — two teams at the bottom of the Big Ten standings.

As of today, those two games are Quad 1 opportunities as Northwestern had a NET rating of 59 and Penn State 73. If Penn State's NET drops past 75, it will turn into a Quad 2 opportunity.

Like the trip out West when the Huskers played at Oregon and Washington, the Huskers will stay on the road and head to State College, Penn., after the game against the Wildcats in Evanston.

"We get an opportunity to spend time with each other, just like we did when we went out West," Hoiberg said. "We're going to stay on the road and travel to Penn State the day after we play Northwestern. We'll stay overnight Chicago, practice at Northwestern, and then hit the road and hopefully play well."

Northwestern will come into Sunday on a two-game losing streak. The Wildcats are also 3-9 in their last 12.

It's been a season full of adversity for head coach Chris Collins, who has lost two starters to season-ending injuries in guard/forward Brooks Barnhizer (foot) and point guard Jalen Leach (ACL).

Northwestern has owned this series lately. Nebraska hasn't beaten Northwestern in Evanston since Feb. 8, 2014. Nebraska did pick up a road win at Northwestern in January 2018, but that game was played in Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Ill., while the Wildcats' current home, Welsh-Ryan Arena, was being renovated.

In the last nine matchups with the Wildcats, the Huskers are 1-8, with the lone win coming last season in Lincoln.

>> GAIN ALL-ACCESS with an annual or monthly subscription for less than $10/month

>> NEW SUBSCRIBERS get 30 days FREE

>> Sound off on the hot topics on our INSIDER'S BOARD

>> Follow us on Twitter (@NebraskaRivals)

>> Follow us on Instagram (@nebraskarivals)

>> Subscribe for FREE to the Inside Nebraska YouTube channel