Huskers Can’t Handle No. 17 Hawkeyes in 94-67 Loss

The last Nebrasketball win came January 7 against Iowa. Saturday’s game went from all Hawkeyes, to the Huskers with a chance, to a second consecutive second-half beat down for Nebraska(7-16, 2-10 Big Ten).

Iowa(17-7, 8-5 Big Ten) came out fast and furious, using a 13-0 run to lead 15-2 just 3:32 into the game. The Hawkeyes shot 10-of-15 to lead 25-9 at the 12:31 mark. Then Iowa left the door open.

Nebraska went on a 12-0 run over the next 8:01 while Iowa missed all 11 shots and had three turnovers. The Huskers could have closed the gap even more, having only shot 5-of-11 over that stretch. The teams played close through the rest of the half until Iowa finished on a 5-0 run to lead 41-30.

A Cam Mack layup opened the second-half scoring to cut the lead to nine, but that would be the closest Nebraska would get. Iowa outscored Nebraska 45-16 for the next 11:57 of game time. During that stretch, the Hawkeyes shot 16-of-21 from the field and made 5-of-6 triples while Nebraska shot just 6-of-17 from the field, including 2-of-11 three-pointers, and had seven turnovers.

Iowa would coast the rest of the way to a 96-74 win.

“Did a lot of good things in the middle of that (first) half,” said Nebraska coach Fred Hoiberg on the Husker Sports Network after the game. “They go in up 11. We score the first bucket of the second-half and then obviously from there it was a disaster.”

Iowa shot 48.6-percent for the game, including 11-of-28 from deep. Joe Wieskamp had a career high 30 points on 10-of-15 shooting. Luka Garza was the only other Hawkeye in double figures as he contributed 22 points and eight rebounds.

Nebraska shot 42.4-percent from the field and made 5-of-25 three pointers. Despite the seven turnovers over the crucial second-half stretch, the Huskers only ended with 12 total.

Jervay Green came off the bench to lead three Huskers in double figures with 18 points on 8-of-12 shooting and grabbed a team-high seven rebounds. Mack scored 13 points but had five turnovers to three assists. Dachon Burke added 12 points.

This makes eight consecutive losses for Nebrasketball.

Nebraska goes on the road to No. 9 Maryland(19-4, 9-3 Big Ten) February 11.