Nebraska Women's Basketball cruised past Minnesota 70-51 on Senior Day
Nebraska Women’s Basketball cruised to a 70-51 win over Minnesota on Senior Day at the Pinnacle Bank Arena.
In her final game at PBA, guard Jaz Shelley led the team with 16 points and seven assists. She went 4-for-9 from behind the arc. Freshman Natalie Potts recorded 12 points and seven rebounds.
Junior Alexis Markowski recorded her 38th career double-double with 10 points and 12 rebounds vs. the Golden Gophers. Markowski now has back-to-back seasons with over 300 rebounds. She is one of 13 in Husker History to reach that accomplishment.
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The Huskers honored Annika Stewart, Jaz Shelley, Maddie Krull and Darian White after their final career home game. Unfortunately, White was unavailable after suffering a leg injury against Rutgers.
Nebraska shot 43.1 percent from the field and 40.7 percent from behind the arc. They held Minnesota to a 40.4 field goal percentage and a 17.6 three-point percentage. The Golden Gophers didn’t score their first three until the middle of the fourth quarter.
Mallory Heyer led Minnesota with 15 points and 10 rebounds. Grace Grocholski added 10 points as well.
Three-pointers boost Nebraska to solid lead in first half
Markowski was the first Husker to score a bucket. She sank a three-pointer from the top of the key to a 5-2 lead. Before her, Kendall Moriarty made two free throws. Potts followed up Markowski with a fastbreak layup to make it a 7-0 NU run.
Potts responded after a layup by Ayianna Johnson with a nice jumper in the paint with six minutes remaining in the first.
The Huskers underwent a scoring drought in the first quarter. Krull scored the first bucket in three minutes with a three-pointer assisted by Shelley. Nebraska went up 14-6 over Minnesota.
Shelley swished a three at the top of the key to make it a 6-0 run. The Australian forced a Gopher timeout while they were down 17-8 with 1:13 left in the first. Callin Hake added to the three-point party with her first points of the game.
Nebraska led 20-8 heading into the second quarter.
Moriarty and Markowski started quarter two with back-to-back layups.
Minnesota cut NU’s lead to 10 after three jumpers in under a minute. However, Shelley boosted the Huskers to a 27-14 lead with her second three. Krull sank another one while standing wide open. Fellow senior Stewart thought about the shot but selflessly passed it to Krull.
NU didn’t score for another three minutes until Markowski put up a jumper with the shot clock winding down. Nebraska took a 32-21 lead with two minutes remaining. Potts was the last player to score in the half with a layup with three seconds remaining.
The Golden Gophers didn’t score a three-pointer in the first half. They were 0-for-8 from behind the arc and 10-for-27 from the field.
Nebraska went into halftime up 34-21.
Nebraska Women’s Basketball pummels Northwestern 75-50 behind four double-digit scorers
Minnesota heats up in 4th quarter but too late
The Huskers opened the third quarter with a 5-0 scoring run to take a 39-23 lead. Mallory Heyer scored the Gophers’ first-half bucket with 6:29 remaining in the third quarter.
Hake drained her second three of the afternoon off an assist from Shelley. Then Hake found Potts inside for a great layup in the paint. Nebraska’s lead jumped to 46-25 with 4:20 left in the quarter.
Jessica Petrie scored NU’s last two baskets of the third quarter. She hadn’t scored until under three minutes left in the quarter.
Amaya Battle came alive in the third quarter. She had Minnesota’s last two field goals in the third. She had six of her 12 points in quarter No. 3.
Nebraska led 50-32 heading into the final 10 minutes.
Shelley started her final quarter in PBA on fire. She had a layup and then a three-pointer to give NU a 57-34 lead.
Petrie continued her momentum and connected with Potts down low for a basket.
Heyer made Minnesota’s first three-pointer of the game with 5:25 remaining.
Shelley buried her last three at PBA with 4:17 remaining. She finished with 16 points and seven assists.
Stewart scored her first points of the game on an open look at the top of the key for three. Then, followed it up immediately with another. NU took a 70-41 lead with Stewart’s help.
Minnesota’s Grace Grocholski found her rhythm and hit back-to-back three-pointers with three minutes remaining. She went 2-for-8 from behind the arc.
The Gophers went 3-for-4 from three in the fourth quarter and shot 50 percent from the floor. They ended the game on a 10-0 scoring run.
Shelley, Krull and Stewart all received separate standing ovations when they were subbed out for the last time. In fact, White checked in with one minute remaining. She was in street clothes on the bench for the vast majority of the game. She earned a huge cheer.
Nebraska’s three-point defense vs. three-point scoring
Nebraska did a great job of defending against Minnesota from behind the arc. But also shot the ball with great confidence to make 11 threes.
The Golden Gophers went 3-for-17 from three. They didn’t score their first three until Heyer sank one with 5:25 left in the fourth quarter. Grocholski scored both of Minnesota’s other three points in the last three minutes.
The Golden Gophers made five threes on their 17 shots in their previous matchup this season. Nebraska went 9-for-30 in Minneapolis.
At PBA, Nebraska did a great job defending the arc against Minnesota. However, the Gophers had many great shots that bounced out and couldn’t get a ball to fall.
“I thought that our team was incredibly locked into game plays,” Husker Head Coach Amy Williams said. “We know who their prolific three-point shooters have been. We wanted to keep a left hand up and really contest and make those shots as difficult as we possibly could.
“I thought we did a pretty good job of that until the very end. They found a couple of loose ones and knocked them in. When you have great shooters, they’re going to do that. We had some specific goals in that realm and I thought our team did a great job of buying into that.”
While Minnesota couldn’t make a three, Nebraska was knocking them down with ease. Five separate Huskers made a three-pointer. Shelley led the team with four. Hake, Stewart and Krull each added two. Markowski made a shot from behind the arc very early on.
“I think offensive rebounds were a key to that,” Shelley said. “In the first quarter, we had three dagger threes off of offensive rebounds. That’s huge. That comes from different people as well, but also just throwing the extra pass. I think we did a good job of that today.”
NU recorded 13 offensive rebounds with 38 total rebounds. They scored 19 second-chance points.
Markowski said postgame that Nebraska had completed three pieces of the four-piece Big Ten puzzle. Now, they need to go on the road and secure a win over Illinois. The win will help them break even in road games. NU sits at 5-5 in away games and 13-3 at home.
Next up, Nebraska goes on the road to take on Illinois on Sunday, March 3. The game is at 3:00 p.m. on the Huskers Radio Network. This is the Huskers’ regular season last game before the Big Ten Tournament, which starts on March 6.
