3 takeaways from Nebraska basketball’s ugly loss to Iowa

Nebraska basketball had lost three of its past five games going into Tuesday night’s game, but the 57-52 loss against Iowa feels like the first bad loss of the season.

Iowa is a quality team. The Hawkeyes will be playing in the NCAA tournament, so it wasn’t a bad loss in terms of opponent. It was a bad loss because it was a huge missed opportunity.

It was the best remaining chance at a quad-1 victory. Nebraska basketball only needed 60 points to get it, but shot 21 percent from 3-point range. Pryce Sandfort made three field goals — two of them 3-pointers — but those 13 points led the way for a Huskers team that struggled to score, take care of the ball, and rebound.

Many of the same trends reared their ugly heads. Nebraska turned it over on 19 percent of its possessions and allowed Iowa to rebound 35.5 percent of its misses. Combine that with a poor shooting night, and you get the 57-52 yuck fest we saw on Tuesday night.

Here are three takeaways as the Huskers fell to 22-4 overall and 11-4 in the Big Ten on Tuesday night.

Sloppy play is killing Nebraska basketball

Nebraska is averaging 11.25 turnovers per game in four losses this season. That’s been a common theme. Three games in a row now, Nebraska has had double-digit turnovers. It wasn’t long ago that Nebraska was only turning the ball over eight times per game.

They have to get back to that. What is frustrating is how many of the turnovers have been the result of unforced errors. The moving screen on Mast was a poor call. But that was one example of a costly turnover.

Nebraska basketball has to get sharper, or its postseason run isn’t going to last very long.

Iowa was tougher

Rebounding is about a lot of things: One is effort.

For the second straight loss, the opposing team played harder and wanted it more. Purdue just beat Nebraska to the ball too much last week. It was the same story on Tuesday night. Whenever there was a 50/50 ball, it seemed to go Iowa’s way.

The Hawkeyes pulled down 11 offensive rebounds. Their offensive rating was still 94.8, which is terrible. The Huskers did the job defensively, but their inability to clean up the glass cost them for the second time in three games.

And in all four losses, opponents have rebounded at least 30 percent of their misses. Offensive rebounds and turnovers are killing Nebraska.

Died by the 3

Nebraska basketball shot 62 percent on 2-point attempts. That was an improvement. However, the Huskers shot just 20.8 percent from 3-point range. Braden Frager, Rienk Mast, and Sam Hoiberg combined to go 0-for-10 from 3-point range.

If Nebraska even shoots around 33 percent, it wins this game by a couple of possessions. The Huskers averaged 12.6 makes from deep in their other losses. This time, the rest of the offense delivered, but the 3-point shots disappeared at the worst time.

Now, Nebraska is out of the Big Ten title hunt. It’s one game out of second place, so the goal is to earn a triple bye in the Big Ten tournament, plus improve the NCAA seeding, which is also falling fast.

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