It was a struggle for Indiana men’s basketball. But for a moment, it seemed it wouldn’t matter.
With just under seven minutes to go in the half, sixth-year senior center Oumar Ballo dished a pass to Luke Goode behind the arc. Without hesitation, the senior forward drilled the 3-pointer to make the score 68-67 in favor of Nebraska.
Goode’s basket was the final field goal of the game for Indiana.
In the final six minutes and 52 seconds, Nebraska outscored Indiana 17-1 en route to an 85-68 victory Friday night at Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln, Nebraska.
The first five minutes and the last five minutes were the only stretches where Indiana looked the same it has for many conference road tests under head coach Mike Woodson –– and despite a much better effort for the other 30 minutes, the damage was too much to overcome.
After just two minutes, the Hoosiers faced an 8-0 scoreline. Three minutes later, it was 17-10. Not an insurmountable deficit, but a deficit nonetheless.
Recent memory suggested the rest of the game was predestined –– another tough conference road loss for Indiana against a mid-tier Big Ten team. It happened in a 66-57 loss to Rutgers and an 86-70 defeat to Nebraska last season. It happened the year before, falling 63-48 to Rutgers.
But Indiana continued to fight back, ending the half down 3 to Nebraska. A serious hindrance for the Hoosiers was the absence of sophomore forward Mackenzie Mgbako, whose two fouls in the first 30 seconds of the game held him out of most of the half.
Indiana’s splits of 44.8% from the field and 33.3% from 3 severely lacked Nebraska’s splits of 65.2% from the field and 71.4% from behind the arc.
And yet, the margin was only 3.
For stretches in the second half, Nebraska looked set to pull away and secure its first conference victory of the season. But each time it did, Indiana responded, most critically with redshirt sophomore guard Myles Rice who scored 12-straight points in a three-minute stretch.
So, when Goode drilled his 3-pointer with seven minutes to go, a Hoosier win seemed almost inevitable. They had overcome the early deficits, kept the game close and with a critical 3 in the final stretch, momentum was on their side to close out the victory.
The demoralizing 17-1 run that followed was the nail in the coffin, capping off a night that was filled with promise and ended with disappointment.
The numbers were there for Indiana. It led the turnover battle nine to 13. It secured 35 rebounds, the same as Nebraska. It limited offensive rebound opportunities for the Cornhuskers, holding them to six.
Ultimately, one team could hit its shots down the stretch –– the other couldn’t.
It wasn’t as if the shots were not open. Goode, a 3-point specialist who has not shot worse than 37.2% from 3 in his career, missed two wide-open shots in the same possession in the final seven minutes. Then immediately on the other end, senior forward Juwan Gary –– who has never shot better than 30.6% from behind the arc –– drilled his contested triple.
“We had our chances,” Woodson said postgame. “But we just couldn’t make shots.”
The marquee road victory was there for Indiana to take, but it couldn’t snatch it. The Hoosiers will have more opportunities to do so, and it’s encouraging that the game was not a blowout, despite what the final score suggests.
A win could have set the tone heading into the new year for a squad looking to be the new Indiana basketball; for now, that will have to wait.
Follow reporters Daniel Flick (@ByDanielFlick) and Quinn Richards (@Quinn_richa) and columnist Mateo Fuentes-Rohwer (@mateo_frohwer) for updates throughout the Indiana men’s basketball season.
