Indiana men’s basketball lost to No. 10 Nebraska 83-77 on Saturday afternoon at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall.
Below are three quick reasons why the Hoosiers won, along with highlights, final stats, and a few quotes.
IU (12-4, 3-2 Big Ten) hits the road for its next game at No. 12 Michigan State on Tuesday, Jan. 13 at 7 p.m. ET.
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Three quick reasons why Indiana lost to Nebraska
1. Second half meltdown: The Hoosiers surged to a nine-point lead at halftime, and they extended it to 16 just over three minutes into the second half. But Nebraska brought it all the way back, relatively quickly. The Cornhuskers compiled an 18-4 run over the next 5:19 of game time, including a 13-0 spurt to tie the score. IU responded with a small run of its own to go back ahead by six with 8:27 to play, but Darian DeVries’ team scored only 12 points the rest of the way.
2. Wasting a big day from Wilkerson: Lamar Wilkerson was dialed in on Saturday. The Sam Houston State transfer recorded his second 30-point game this season, putting up 32 on 9-for-20 shooting. Wilkerson went 5 for 11 from 3-point range and a perfect 9 for 9 at the foul line. But Indiana just never got enough offense from the rest of the team to complement the senior’s effort. Tucker DeVries finished as IU’s second-leading scorer with 17 points on 6-for-13 shooting, but seven of those points came in the game’s final 3:15, well after Nebraska claimed a firm grip on the win. Reed Bailey scored 10 points and grabbed nine rebounds, but the rest of the team combined for just 16 points.
3. Jamarques Lawrence popped off: IU did a good job containing Nebraska forward Rienk Mast, holding him to 1 for 7 3-point shooting and 13 points. But the Hoosiers had very few answers for Jamarques Lawrence, who shot 8 for 13 from the field and 5 for 8 from beyond the arc for 27 points. This Nebraska team has so many weapons, between Mast, Lawrence, Pryce Sandfort (4 for 9 from the field for 12 points), Berke Büyüktuncel (eight points), and others like Braden Frager (11 points off the bench), it’s difficult to keep everyone at bay.
Final stats
Highlights
Quotable
Darian DeVries on second-half collapse: “I think the number one thing was just the paint touches they got, and then there was some high ball screens and things that we messed up some switches, which we did a good job of, you know, for a good part of the game.
Then second half we didn’t communicate that well enough, and they were able to get to the rim and got a few free-throws there early to start and got some of those paint touches. Then a few of the live ball turnovers, you know, the 14 turnovers, it’s a pretty simple deal. You take care of the basketball; you win the game. We got that lead, and then we had, I don’t know, four out of five possessions I think we turned the ball over during a 10-0 run when we had the lead up to 16. That’s just something that you just can’t do if you’re going to beat a good team.”
DeVries on letting an opportunity slip away: “It’s disappointing, for sure. We played well for a good 25, 27, 28 minutes, whatever, and then just had a bad stretch in there, and the game flipped.
That’s why the turnovers are a big piece of that. We had — I can’t remember if it was 15 or 16, and Tucker picked up his third and fourth foul on back-to-back possessions. Then they went on a 10-0 run right after that. That was a big turning point in the game, I thought, where he picked those two up.”
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