As magic evaporates in Nebraska’s Senior Day loss, a look at what’s ahead

Fred Hoiberg didn’t need words. His face said it all.

He reflexively rolled his eyes, then buried his face in his hands.

A vivid summation of the Nebraska men’s basketball team’s second half against Michigan State on Senior Night on Tuesday.

Nebraska’s 14th turnover is what prompted Hoiberg’s exasperated reaction with just less than two minutes to play. But it would have been the appropriate response for any number of events that came to pass for Nebraska.

The Huskers allowed a 15-point first-half lead to evaporate. In the second half, Nebraska missed eight consecutive shots over a seven-minute span. Inversely, the Spartans had a second half that featured eight second-chance points and 15 points off Nebraska turnovers while hitting 12 three-pointers at a 70.6% clip to not just erase tje deficit, but lead by 17 points with 32 seconds remaining.

“It’s disheartening. It hurts. We haven’t felt that in that locker room in a while,” Hoiberg said. “It’s disappointing. It’s a hurt locker room. We have to find a way to put it behind us.”

Tuesday night could have been one for the ages. Magical with a capital M. And for a while, it was.

Nebraska’s Senior Night honored four players: seniors Derrick Walker, Sam Griesel and Emmanuel Bandoumel; and junior Keisei Tominaga.

Riding on the high of that celebration, the pieces came together in the first half.

Nebraska’s high-flying, swarming defense stifled Michigan State’s offense to the point where the Spartans didn’t score for nearly eight minutes and missed 10 straight shots.

Nebraska’s offense, on the other hand, played off that — going on 9-0 and 8-0 runs with a stretch of six straight made shots to almost close out the first half while shooting 57.7%.

“We played some pretty damn good basketball tonight for a good, healthy chunk of that game,” Hoiberg said. “We played, unfortunately, 24 really good minutes of basketball.”

The crowd fed off it too. When Griesel and Tominaga made back-to-back threes from nearly the same spot, the Vault erupted as Michigan State’s Tom Izzo screamed for a timeout.

At the time, it didn’t work.

But Izzo’s frantic halftime message of “Would somebody please guard somebody?!” resonated.

Those watching know what happened next: a painful second half that turned the once-raucous crowd silent and sent it  streaming toward the exits with two minutes to play.

For those looking for a silver lining where there aren’t many: Nebraska still shot 51% from the floor. Jamarques Lawrence had a career game. Tominaga was back up to his 20-point ways.

But it just wasn’t enough, not nearly enough, to keep up with Michigan State’s absurd second half.

And with that, Nebraska’s thrilling four-game win streak comes to an end.

Not with a bang, but a whimper.

Well, Nebraska has been teetering on the edge of the NIT bubble since its winning streak began Feb. 11. A loss certainly doesn’t help the cause.

Before Tuesday’s loss, the Huskers were squarely in the conversation of the NIT, not just on the bubble.

But they’re not a lock. Nebraska is 15-15 heading into its final regular-season game: at Iowa on Sunday.

And while NU can’t afford to let one loss turn into two, Iowa is heating up after the Fran “McCaffery stare” somehow helped propel the Hawkeyes into a wild comeback against Michigan State earlier this week before Iowa pummeled Indiana 90-68 on Tuesday.

That’s one to raise the eyebrows.

But let’s focus on the first tournament. The Big Ten Tournament. Even with NU’s loss to Michigan State, there’s still a chance the Huskers get the No. 10 seed.

Nebraska is 8-11 in Big Ten play with one game left, while Penn State and Wisconsin are 8-10 with two games left.

Penn State plays at Northwestern (20-9, Big Ten 11-7) Wednesday evening and then hosts No. 21 Maryland (20-9, Big Ten 11-7) on Sunday. Wisconsin plays No. 5 Purdue (24-5, Big Ten 13-5) on Thursday and then plays at Minnesota (7-20, Big Ten 1-16) on Sunday.

If Nebraska loses to Iowa, the rest of this is probably moot. (There is, somehow, a path for Nebraska to get the No. 10 seed if the Huskers lose to the Hawkeyes.)

Thankfully, there are people who are much smarter than me who can figure out the tiebreaker situations. For the following scenarios, I used mred’s 2023 Big 10 MBB Tournament Tiebreaker to plug in different results.

If Nebraska and Wisconsin finish with 9-11 Big Ten records, but Penn State finishes at 8-12, Nebraska gets the No. 10 seed because of its head-to-head record with Wisconsin.

If Nebraska, Penn State and Wisconsin all finish with 9-11 Big Ten records, Wisconsin gets the No. 10, Nebraska gets the No. 11 and Penn State gets the No. 12.

In that scenario, Penn State gets the No. 12 because of the round-robin record vs. Wisconsin and Nebraska. And Nebraska gets the No. 11 because of its loss to Michigan. Nebraska went 0-1 against Michigan, while Wisconsin went 1-1.

Weirdly enough, if all three teams lose out, Nebraska also somehow gets the No. 10 seed.

Penn State gets the No. 12 because of the round-robin record, and Nebraska gets the No. 10 because of winning percentage against Indiana, Maryland and Northwestern. NU is 1-3 against those schools, while Wisconsin is 1-4.

If either Penn State or Wisconsin win out, that team will get the No. 10. If they both win out, which is unlikely, Wisconsin gets the No. 10 because of its regular season sweep over PSU.

Don’t ask why this is so confusing. I have no idea. Maybe the new commissioner can simplify things.