Nebraska women's basketball falls 67-64 to Michigan State in Big Ten tournament
No. 8 Nebraska women’s basketball falls 67-64 in a hard-fought game to No. 9 Michigan State (16-13, 7-10) in the second round of the Big Ten tournament. The Huskers (16-14, 8-10) needed to make a run in the Big Ten tournament to help with their NCAA tournament chances.
Jaz Shelley finished with 24 points, five rebounds and went 5-for-10 from behind the arc. Sam Haiby had 14 points and eight rebounds. Alexis Markowski had a double-double with 12 points and 13 rebounds. DeeDee Hagemann had 18 points for Michigan State.
Haiby broke the Nebraska record as this was her 137 career game.
The Spartans had 38 points in the paint while Nebraska had 18. Both teams had lots of turnovers as MSU had 20 and the Huskers had 18 turnovers.
Michigan State’s full-court press and defense caused chaos for the Huskers early on. Nebraska had four turnovers in the first minute and a half of the game. Three of those turnovers were steals.
The Spartans took advantage and led 7-0 with four points converted from turnovers.
Husker Head Coach Amy Williams was forced to call a timeout with 8:21 left in the first.
Shelley was the first Husker to score as she sank a three-pointer with 8:05 left in the first. Neither Nebraska women’s basketball nor Michigan State scored for three minutes. Taiyier Parks broke MSU’s drought with back-to-back buckets against Markowski. Markowski made her first basket of the game after Parks’ second shot, making it 11-5 with 4:15 to go in the first quarter.
Nebraska women’s basketball defeats Northwestern 80-64 to finish regular season 16-13, 8-10
Anni Stewart drilled a wide-open three to close the gap to 13-8 after a couple of Spartan free throws.
Parks had MSU’s fifth steal of the game as she took the ball from Shelley and dribbled it down the court for an easy layup. The Spartans went up 15-8 with 2:10 remaining in the first quarter. Parks had six first-quarter points but two fouls.
The Huskers didn’t score a field goal for the final 3:37 of the first quarter. They began the second quarter down 15-9.
Bourne, who was quiet in the first quarter, started off the second quarter right. She battled against two MSU bigs to get a bucket inside and made the and-one shot to close it to 15-12.
Moira Joiner hit a three in response. Nebraska struggled to slow down the Spartans on offense. Finally, Shelley broke open the game.
Shelley was the next Nebraska player to score a field goal as she sank a three at the top of the key. She and Haiby’s two free throws made it 22-17 with 6:43 remaining.
Shelley drained another wide-open three on the next possession after an assist from Markowski. Nebraska was back in it 22-20.
Michigan State didn’t score for 3:42 while Nebraska won on its 8-0 scoring run. Haiby found Markowski under the basket for the last bucket of the run and tie it up 22-22.
Hagemann ended the drought with a layup to take back to lead.
The Huskers didn’t score for three minutes after Markowski’s bucket. Haiby ended the drought by draining a wide-open three to close MSU’s lead to 26-25 with 1:30 left in the first half.
Kendall Coley fouled Matilda Ekh on a three and Ekh hit all three free throws for Michigan State to lead 29-25 at half.
Nebraska and Michigan State battle in second half
Haiby sparked Nebraska with an opening fastbreak layup to make it 27-25. After two Michigan State buckets, Krull hit her first three of the game to make it 33-30 MSU. Joiner drained a three in response. Nebraska, in turn, went on a 6-0 scoring run with a Haiby layup and a Shelley three-pointer to tie it up 36-36.
Joiner nailed a three to take the lead back. Shelley found Bourne underneath the basket for Bourne’s 4th and 5th points of the game.
Neither team scored a field goal for another three minutes. Shelley made three free throws during the drought to take the lead 41-40 with 2:36 left in the third quarter.
Hagemann made MSU’s first bucket in a while to go up 42-41 and then Ayrault made one of her two free throws on the next possession.
Markowski was fouled next and also made one of her two shots at the line. On the next possession, she battled to bank in a shot down low.
Hagemann spun into the hoop and made the and-one shot for the final points of the third quarter. Michigan State was up 46-44 heading into the final 10 minutes.
Michigan State scored the first eight points of the fourth quarter to go up 54-44 with 7:25 to go. Joiner had six of those points including a fastbreak layup after a steal from Shelley.
Hagemann hit an open three to go up 57-44. The Spartans were on a 14-0 scoring run carrying over from the last three points of the third quarter.
Shelley finally made Nebraska’s first bucket after she drove inside and layup it in. Parks fouled her for her fourth foul. Shelley made the and-one shot to close the gap to 57-47 with 6:02 to go.
Haiby backed Shelley up with a fastbreak layup on the next possession. Shelley drained a three to make it an 8-0 run and force a MSU timeout. Nebraska closed the gap to 57-52 with 5:07 left.
Joiner floated in a jumper to end her team’s drought.
Both teams traded free throws over the next minute. Nebraska women’s basketball went 4-for-6 and Michigan State went 3-for-4.
Hagemann had another spin move to make it 64-56. Markowski drilled her first three of the game to close the gap to 64-59.
McDaniel hit a danger of a three-pointer to go up 67-59 with 1:06 to go.
Markowski made two free throws to close to gap to 67-61. After a Michigan State timeout, Shelley forced a MSU turnover and got the ball back with 50 seconds left.
Bourne nailed a three immediately out of the timeout. The Huskers closed it to 67-64 with 43 seconds left.
The Spartans took as long as possible on the other end. Haiby drew an offensive foul from Ekh. The fifth-year senior went down with a leg injury. She walked off by herself.
With 15.9 seconds left, Shelley and Krull both shot a three. Shelley got her rebound and sent it out the Krull but it bounced out. Michigan State wins 67-64 in the second round of the Big Ten tournament.
Notables:
***Michigan State’s full-court press and defense in general put a lot of pressure on Nebraska. Opening up the game with four turnovers and down seven points is rough, especially in such a critical game. The Huskers had to work hard to change the momentum.
From the very beginning, Nebraska was playing catchup. They never led by more than one point.
“Obviously, we’re incredibly disappointed to lose,” Williams said. “We came up here to win and advance and make a run in this tournament. So it’s incredibly disappointing to walk away with this loss.”
“I thought our kids fought to the final buzzer but just did not play the complete 40 minutes that it takes to win this time of year,” she said.
All season long, the Huskers have struggled with playing 40 strong minutes. When they have, great things have happened like beating No. 25 Illinois 90-57. The same thing happened in Minneapolis where Nebraska didn’t start off strong and then they gave up a 17-3 run in the fourth quarter.
In a critical game against a Big Ten opponent, Nebraska can’t have lapses and come out on top. They haven’t been able to do so all season and that didn’t change on Thursday.
“Obviously, we got off to a really bad start in the fourth quarter,” Haiby said. “We’ve been talking about that all season. If we want to win games, we have to go out ready to win from the jump. Like Coach said, we gave a lot of fight and never gave up and gave ourselves a chance at the end.”
***The Huskers were dominated in the paint. Michigan State had 36 points in the paint and Nebraska had 18. Williams told the Big Ten Network reporters that Nebraska needed to score more in the paint in the second half. NU had six first-half paint points and MSU added 16.
Tieyer Parks was a big part of that. While she only had eight points, all in the paint, Parks locked down Markowski. Luckily for Nebraska, Parks was in foul trouble all game long. But when she was in Markowski couldn’t score.
Hagemann did a great job driving to the hoop and laying in buckets as well. She finished with 18 points and five layups.
“When they got to the paint, they got to the paint for paint touches, for points, but also for inside-outside kickouts, and our inability to contain that penetration really cost us, I thought,” Williams said. “That was evident with their 38 points in the paint or 36 to our 18.”
***Nebraska’s NCAA tournament hopes seem to be officially over. NU needed to make a run in the Big Ten tournament to prove themselves worthy.
NU was on the bubble and ESPN listed them as third in the “first four out” group. Michigan State was the last team in the “next four out” category. They could get a shot if they pull off the upset against No. 1 Indiana on Friday at 11:30 a.m. CT.
The Huskers could still be selected for the WNIT. We will officially know on Sunday, March 12.
