Three Thoughts on No. 12 Nebraska's win over Maryland

No. 12-ranked Nebraska handled business against Big Ten cellar-dweller Maryland with a 74-61 win on Wednesday night inside Pinnacle Bank Arena.

The Huskers improved to 24-4 overall and 13-4 in the conference with the victory. The Terrapins dropped to 11-17, 4-13 with the defeat.

Here are three quick thoughts from the game:

Braden Frager was the spark his team needed

Wednesday’s game was a rock fight for much of the contest with both teams struggling to score the ball.

Nebraska missed its first six shots of the game and wasn’t getting anything going until Braden Frager came off the bench. Frager, the 6-foot-7 redshirt freshman wing, snapped the scoring drought by attacking the rim and drawing a foul he turned into two free-throw makes that marked Nebraska’s first points at the 14:17 mark.

Frager wound up scoring a game-high 21 points with eight rebounds. He scored 10 points in the first half — and they were big as no one else was scoring — and 11 in the second.

And on a night when Nebraska didn’t do as well as it should have at the free-throw line — it shot 18-of-24 — Frager was a perfect 6-of-6 at the stripe.

Nebraska leaned on its defense and rebounded the ball

Maryland came into the game with the second-worst offense in Big Ten play at 66.9 points per game.

So the Huskers, who own the fifth best defense in the country according to KenPom, didn’t give up much on that end of the court and held the Terps below their league average in scoring. The Husker defense kept the team in the game.

Nebraska held Maryland to 38% shooting from the field and turned 11 Terp turnovers into 14 points.

Another area that helped Nebraska win was on the glass — the Huskers outrebounded the Terps 35-34 overall. Both teams hauled down seven boards on the glass.

Nebraska finished the game in a big way

Nebraska completely dominated Maryland to finish the game.

The Huskers trailed 48-45 at the 12:07 mark of the second half, but finished the game on an epic 29-13 run that got the crowd in it and made life tough on Buzz Williams’ team.

One bright spot for Nebraska in the second half was Rienk Mast. No, Mast didn’t snap out of his offensive funk, but he did score 11 of his 13 points in the second half. And for the first time since the Purdue game, he made a 3-pointer and was 1-of-2 from deep.

Up next

Nebraska’s West Coast swing is what’s up next.

The Huskers will travel to California later this week for road games at USC (18-10, 7-10) on Saturday and UCLA (19-9, 11-6) on Tuesday.

After the trip out west, Nebraska will host Iowa (19-8, 9-7) for its regular-season finale on Sunday, March 8.