Nebraska struggles in second half, loses first home game to No. 9 Illinois

No. 5 Husker men’s basketball dropped back-to-back top-10 matchups, falling to No. 9 Illinois 78-69 on Sunday in Lincoln. Coming off a close road loss to No. 3 Michigan Tuesday, Nebraska is now 20-2 overall and 9-2 in conference play.

Nebraska head coach Fred Hoiberg noted the team didn’t do enough in the paint.

“I think we were 5 for 24 inside the arc. It’s hard to win a game when you do that,” Hoiberg said. “You make 15 threes — you should win that game, but their length bothered us in the paint and that’s the reason they went away with the win.”

Senior Rienk Mast and freshman Braden Frager returned to action on Sunday. Mast missed the Michigan game with a stomach bug. Hoiberg said on Friday that Mast went to the emergency room Wednesday for severe dehydration. Frager sat out two full games dealing with an ankle injury from less than two weeks ago.

Mast struggled, scoring only 5 points, all in the final minutes of the game. Sandfort said, “I have no doubt in my mind that he’ll be back and stronger than ever.”

“Being there for him as he’s kind of getting back into the swing of things is big,” Sandfort said.

Hoiberg gave Mast credit for playing more than half of the game but added “he played like he was in the ER until 3:00 in the morning,” the coach said. “He’s going to get his timing back. He’s going to get his wind back.”

Meanwhile, Frager, a Lincoln Southwest graduate, wasted no time to make an impact.

Much like the first half against Michigan, the Big Red shot the lights out. Buoyed by four makes from Frager, NU drilled 11 shots from behind the 3-point arc in the opening half against Illinois.

“Everyone thought it was going to be two to four weeks, and here he is, whatever it is, nine days out back on the floor, out there fighting, battling, swinging,” Hoiberg said, “so I give Braden a lot of credit for going out there and playing the way he did.”

Iowa transfer Pryce Sandfort continued on his recent hot streak, also making four shots from distance in the first half. Senior Jamarques Lawrence hit both of his shots from range, and guard Sam Hoiberg added a 3-pointer in the opening half as well.

Nebraska started out with a 9-4 lead. Multiple small runs by Illinois kept the Huskers at arms length for a good chunk of the opening half, leading by as many as six points. Then, a 14-2 Big Red run to end the half gave the Huskers a 39-33 lead going into intermission.

The visitors dominated the second half, outscoring Nebraska 45-30 in the final period.

Nebraska extended the lead a couple of minutes into the second half. But Illinois, now winners of 11 straight games after losing to Nebraska in mid-December, exploded on a 16-5 spurt to reclaim the lead at 51-47. Illinois freshman Keaton Wagler had half of those 16 points during the run. He finished the game with 28 points. Wagler was just over a week removed from dropping 46 on No. 12 Purdue last Saturday.

Following five points from Frager, the Fighting Illini scored ten straight points. They led by as many as 11. The home crowd inside Pinnacle Bank Arena was silenced.

An and-1 layup and free throw from Sam Hoiberg reignited the Husker faithful for a moment. That cut the lead to eight at 68-60 going into a media timeout. After two more layups from Hoiberg and many made free throws from Wagler, Illinois milked the clock and grabbed multiple offensive rebounds to retain control of the game.

“Give Illinois credit. They’re playing really good basketball right now,” Hoiberg said. “To me, the game came down to our inability to finish off possessions. And they were really controlling tempo.”

Frager led the way for Nebraska with 20 points.

The Cornhuskers will get a much-needed five-day break and will play at Rutgers on Saturday.