Nebraska basketball drops tough one to No. 3 Michigan, 75-72

Husker men’s hoops dropped its first game of the season Tuesday night, on the road against No. 3 Michigan, 75-72.

Nebraska, which was missing two of its best players in senior Rienk Mast who didn’t play because of an illness, and redshirt freshman Braden Frager, who missed his second straight game with a sprained ankle, hit 10 three-pointers to take a 50-48 lead at halftime.

In the opening half, it looked like the game could be headed for the 90s or 100s. At one point, senior guard Jamarques Lawrence scored 11 consecutive points for the visiting Huskers. He scored on four straight possessions with three makes from behind the three-point arc. Then it was Pryce Sandfort’s turn who made four triples including a pair in the final minutes of the half.

Both teams cooled off in the second half, but Nebraska kept the lead for all but the final two minutes. Michigan finished strong, ending the game on a 6-0 run. The shorthanded Huskers scored just two points in the final five minutes and zero after the 3:21 mark. The Cornhuskers were outrebounded 35-23 by the much taller Wolverines.

With multiple guys missing, competing until the end shows the Huskers’ character, head coach Fred Hoiberg said after the game.

“Our guys, again, they fought through adversity, they battled,” Hoiberg said. “And listen, that team is projected by a lot of people to win a national championship.”

“We've responded great when we've had a big, emotional win, and now we're going to find out what we're made of and how we're going to respond to a tough loss like that,” Hoiberg said. “But listen, that just proved, I hope to everybody, most importantly to those guys in the locker room, that we can compete with anybody in this country.”

Hoiberg said he found out officially that Mast wouldn’t play about 12 minutes before the game, due to a stomach bug.

Without the big man competing down low, “their size wore us down,” Hoiberg said. “Their size is going to wear everybody down.”

Despite the shorter rotation, the NU head coach said he was proud of how freshman Leo Curtis stepped up off the bench, scoring six points in the contest and taking care of the basketball. Guard Cale Jacobson started in place of Mast and scored eight points.

“(He’s) tough as nails and a winner,” Hoiberg said of Jacobsen, a junior from Ashland, Nebraska.

Sandfort and Lawrence both finished with 20 points to lead the Huskers. Sam Hoiberg was the only other player in double figures, with 13 points.

Tuesday was built up as one of the biggest nights in program history. It was the first top-five game in Nebraska men’s basketball history. The Huskers had started the season 20-0 and entered the top five of the Associated Press poll for the first time ever.

But the Huskers fell to 20-1 on the season and 9-1 in the conference.

The Wolverines jumped into a tie for first place in the conference, also with a 9-1 record in the Big Ten and with a 19-1 mark overall. Illinois and Michigan State also have one loss in conference play. MSU eked out an overtime win on Tuesday night against Rutgers, to keep pace with the pack. Illinois is 8-1 with a game at home against Washington Thursday.

For the Huskers, Hoiberg will have a few days to regroup and heal up his team, before another big matchup on Sunday against No. 9 Illinois. The Huskers will have many more chances to impress the NCAA Tournament selection committee, including Sunday’s home game, a matchup with No. 12 Purdue on Tuesday, Feb. 10, and two games down the stretch against rival Iowa.