Iowa hands Nebraska another defeat, knocks Huskers out of Big Ten Tournament

Senior Day turned into a bit of a nightmare for Nebraska.

Needing a win to reach the Big Ten Tournament, the Huskers played spiritless basketball for much of Sunday’s game.

Iowa, also needing a win to make the league tournament’s 15-team field, took full advantage, reeling off an 83-68 triumph before a sold-out crowd at Pinnacle Bank Arena.

Brock Harding’s three-pointer with 2:50 left in the contest seemed to be the dagger — it increased Iowa’s lead to 77-66 — as the Hawkeyes improved to 16-15 overall while finishing 7-13 in regular-season Big Ten play.

Nebraska finishes 17-14 and 7-13 and basically has no chance of playing in the NCAA Tournament. The Huskers fell for the sixth time in the last seven games.

With six seniors in Nebraska’s rotation, such a lifeless performance seems inexplicable. One of those seniors, center Braxton Meah, was held out of the game with back spasms.

Brice Williams has surprisingly quiet day

Meanwhile, Brice Williams, coming off a 43-point effort at Ohio State, was held to seven points on 3-for-12 field-goal shooting. He was averaging 21.4. Fellow senior Juwan Gary led Nebraska with 24 points and seven rebounds.

Iowa seemed comfortable pretty much throughout the game.

During the first half, Iowa certainly found quite a bit of comfort offensively, right down to Payton Sandfort’s layup off a designed play at the halftime buzzer. Leading 40-35 at the break, the Hawkeyes hit 6 of 15 three-point shots in the first half (40%) and were 11-for-28 (39.3%) on the day.

Meanwhile, Nebraska missed its last 10 shots from three-point land in the first half and ended up 6-for-27 (22%).

Nebraska actually started the game fairly well. Williams’ steal and basket gave NU an 18-10 lead, its largest of the opening 20 minutes. Iowa, though, immediately reeled off an 11-0 run, taking its first lead of the game on Harding’s three-point basket that made it 21-18 with 10:08 left before the break.

Nebraska coach Fred Hoiberg couldn’t have been pleased with his team at the break. It looked a bit tentative. It wasn’t particularly crisp on either end of the floor.

That also turned out to be the case in the second half.

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