Washut: Nebraska flipped disaster into an unforgettable comeback at Northwestern
Trailing by 20 points in the second half, Nebraska pulled off one of its largest comebacks in program history to top Northwestern 68-64 in Evanston.
Here are three of my biggest takeaways from the victory and what it means for the Huskers going forward…
RELATED: Nebraska grinds out a 20-point comeback victory at Northwestern, 68-64
Nebraska’s rollercoaster Sunday ends in a win to remember
I’ll admit it: I had already started writing my game story when Nick Martinelli scored to push Northwestern’s lead to 41-21 with 19:15 left to play.
The Huskers, coming off arguably their worst 20 minutes of basketball this season in the first half, looked dead in the water. They were getting punked in every aspect by a Wildcat team without two of its top three players fighting to keep its Big Ten Tournament hopes alive.
For whatever reason, Nebraska’s performance ceiling and floor couldn’t be much further apart this year. By halftime, it felt like the Huskers had hit their basement.
Just when many, myself included, were ready to chalk Sunday up as another Big Ten road embarrassment, NU flipped the switch. Brice Williams and Juwan Gary scored 28 of NU’s 47 second-half points, including 15 of its final 20.
Nebraska locked in on defense, finished possessions on the glass, and hit five of their six 3-pointers after halftime. In the end, that all added up to the program’s biggest comeback in the Big Ten era and its largest since 1996-97.
It also gave the Huskers their first victory in Evanston since 2014 against a Wildcat team that had won eight of the past nine meetings.
Braxton Meah answered the call
In a game where seemingly nothing went right for Nebraska in the first half, someone needed to step up and provide a spark.
Braxton Meah answered that call with what head coach Fred Hoiberg called his best game as a Husker.
The 7-foot-1 senior ended up with a conference-high 10 points on 4-of-5 shooting, a season-high rebounds, and a season-best two blocked shots. He scored seven of NU’s nine points from 5:10 to 51 seconds remaining in the game.
Meah’s most significant play came on an And-1 that gave Nebraska its first lead of the day with 3:26 to play. A 44% free-throw shooting on the year coming in, the Washington transfer has now made seven of his last eight attempts going back to the Maryland win.
“I thought he was all over the place,” Hoiberg said. “He had a couple big blocks… He made his free throws again… That’s what you have to do.”
Fred Hoiberg sent a strong, albeit dangerous, halftime message
No one was more frustrated with Nebraska’s effort at the end of the first half than Hoiberg.
In fact, Hoiberg made sure everyone in NU’s locker room knew it when he broke a whiteboard during his halftime talk. The sixth-year coach returned to the floor for the second half with his hand bandaged.
Whatever Hoiberg said – and broke – during the intermission clearly hit home for the Huskers, as they responded with their largest comeback in nearly 30 years.
However, Hoiberg knows he shouldn’t make breaking things become a habit, if nothing else than for his own safety. Hoiberg regularly takes blood thinners after multiple heart surgeries.
“I had a little incident with a whiteboard at halftime,” Hoiberg told the Huskers Radio Network. “I’ll never learn. I’ve done this several times where I’ve hurt a foot or broke a toe one year. I’m on a blood thinner, and that’s the problem – I cut my hand on the whiteboard, and this thing will bleed for a long time.”
They said it
“They’re going to kill me, first of all. But if we can play a consistent 40 minutes like we did the last 15 (at Northwestern), we’re going to be pretty good. We can beat anybody if we play like that. If not, we’re going to get stung.”
-Nebraska head coach Fred Hoiberg on the Huskers’ 20-point comeback victory at Northwestern.
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