Nebrasketball: Northwestern outlasts Nebraska in OT 81-76

Bruce Thorson-USA TODAY Sports

Huskers send their seniors out with a loss, and likely blew their last chance at another conference win for the season.

There’s not a whole lot to say at this point. There are two games remaining in the regular season, both are on the road and neither will see the Huskers given a chance by oddsmakers. The Nebraska Cornhuskers were finally favored in this one, sure it was 2.5 points, but they were favored. The Northwestern Wildcats were the bottom of the conference one spot lower than Nebraska. Sure, they had the win over Nebraska in our last meeting, but that one was on the road. The Huskers have had a fight in them throughout most of the losing stretch, and surely they wanted to send their lone (active) senior Haanif Cheatham out with a win?

Alas, it was not to be. Perhaps the most mind-boggling statistic that signifies how frustrating this game was is the fact the Huskers went 8-30 from the free throw line while going 12-32 from three point range. That’s right, the Huskers shot 10.8 percent higher from three point range, on more attempts, than from the charity stripe. So not only does this team hold the distinction for most consecutive losses in a row in school history, now at 14, but they are also the only team since at least the 2010-11 season with a minimum of 30 free throw attempts in a game to shoot worse than 30 percent at the line. If you change it to a minimum of 20 attempts in a game, the Huskers had the fifth-worst percentage in that same 10-year period.