3 Course corrections for Nebraska basketball after Purdue loss

After a 20-0 start, Nebraska basketball has lost three of its last four games, and the hopes of winning the Big Ten regular-season championship are fading fast.

Nebraska is now two games behind Michigan in a four-way tie for second place. The Huskers would probably need to win out, then hope the Wolverines lose twice in the next seven games.

What happens over the next seven games and the Big Ten tournament will be critical for seeding. If the Huskers finish strong, they should still be in the 2-3 seed range. Anything outside of a top-four seed would be a disappointment.

The schedule gets easier. Nebraska basketball will play Northwestern, at Iowa, Penn State, Maryland, at USC, at UCLA, and against Iowa. That’s after playing three top-12 teams in four games (all losses).

The schedule has three challenging road games, plus a manageable home slate. A 5-2 record is doable. That would be 15-5 in the Big Ten.

Purdue won the league with that record in 2022-23. 15-5 would also be top-two in every other season since. In order to get there, though, Nebraska will need to improve in three key areas.

So, here are some course corrections for Fred Hoiberg’s squad over the last seven games.

Limit offensive boards

Purdue rebounded 40.1 percent of its misses on Tuesday night. That’s why Nebraska basketball lost. During its three losses this season, the Huskers have allowed teams to rebound an average of 35.03 percent of their misses (offensive rebounding rate).

That’s far too high. Nebraska is underwater in average rebounding margin (-3.3 ) during Big Ten play and didn’t rebound more than 17 percent of its misses in those three games. That means opponents were rebounding twice as many missed shots as Nebraska.

Indiana and Michigan State each rebounded over 30 percent in losses to Nebraska. The difference is that the Huskers forced Michigan State to turn the ball over on 25 percent of its possessions. They were also close in offensive rebounding rate against Indiana, plus won the turnover battle.

Nebraska isn’t a great offensive rebounding team. But it has to be better than it has been in the last three losses, and most importantly, it needs to get back to cleaning things up on the defensive glass.

It’s difficult to beat elite teams when you are consistently being out-rebounded, which tends to happen more because the best teams are usually some of the best rebounding teams.

Value the ball again

Nebraska is averaging 9.1 turnovers per game this season (8th-best in college basketball) and just 7.9 in Big Ten play (3rd).

However, Nebraska basketball turned it over an average of 11 times per game against Michigan, Illinois, and Purdue. Many of those were just sloppy plays. Passes that weren’t crisp. Dropped passes out of bounds — we’ve seen that stuff in the past two games — it has to stop.

How many possessions did Nebraska give away early in the game? If the Huskers had nine turnovers instead of 14 on Tuesday, they would have won the game. 3-4 extra possessions could have made a huge difference against Michigan, too.

Simply put, Nebraska isn’t going to win in the NCAA tournament if it has double-digit turnovers, and teams have an offensive rebounding rate above 30.

Losing the 2-point battle

People love to say that Nebraska lives and dies by the three. That hasn’t been the case, though. In Nebraska’s three losses, they have made 38 (12.6 per game). They also shot a decent percentage.

What has cost Nebraska offensively in the past three games is a dropping 2-point percentage. Nebraska shot 51 percent against Purdue, which was better than the 41 percent it shot against Indiana, but the Huskers are at 50 percent over the past three games.

Before that, their 2-point percentage was above 60 percent. That’s a huge dip. Michigan, Illinois, and Purdue had an average field-goal percentage of 60.9 percent.

You aren’t going to win many games when teams are beating you by 10 percentage points on 2s, winning the rebounding battle, and turning you over.

If Nebraska basketball wants to get back on track, it needs to fix those three things.

For More Nebraska content, follow us on Twitter, like our Facebook Page, and Subscribe to the Husker Big Red YouTube Channel.