Indiana had a chance to pick up a huge win over a top-10 team on Saturday, but the Hoosiers blew a big second-half lead and lost to the Cornhuskers 83-77 at Assembly Hall. Lamar Wilkerson had 32 points in a losing effort.
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Indiana's men's basketball team has a lot of wins so far this year, 12 to be exact. But they don't have any quality wins, which will be a requirement if they want to play in the postseason.
They had a chance to get one on Saturday at home against No. 10-ranked Nebraska.
And they blew it. Blew it bad.
The Hoosiers had a 16-point lead in the second half, but let it all slip away with bad turnovers, questionable fouls and sloppy defense. Nebraska won 83-77 to remain perfect on the season, 16-0 overall and 5-0 in the Big Ten.
Indiana slipped to 12-4 and 3-2 in the Big Ten, letting a golden opportunity slip away. This is their fifth straight loss to Nebraska, dating back to 2022.
"Yeah, it’s disappointing, for sure,'' Indiana coach Darian DeVries said when asked about the second-half collapse. "We played well for a good 25, 27, 28 minutes, whatever, and then just had a bad stretch in there, and the game flipped.
"That’s why the turnovers are a big piece of that. We had I can’t remember if it was 15 or 16, and Tucker picked up his third and forty foul on back-to-back possessions. Then they went on a 10-0 run right after that. That was a big turning point in the game I thought where he picked those two up.''
Indiana, which lost at home for the first time all season, played well early, taking a 39-30 lead to the locker room at halftime thanks to a 12-2 run to end the period.
They opened the second half on a 10-3 run, with the highlight a four-point play from guard Lamar Wilkerson. It was 49-33 Hoosiers with 17:42 left in the game.
But it went all downhill from there — and fast.
Nebraska got consecutive three-pointers from Sam Hoiberg, Jamarques Lawrence and Pryce Sandford and a pair of layups to tie the game at 65-65. Indiana never led again.
Lawrence led Nebraska with 27 points, including five three-pointers. The Cornhuskers made 14 threes in the game, shooting at a 41 percent clip from deep.
Wilkerson scored 32 points and made five three-pointers to lead Indiana, which watched its four-game winning streak end. Tucker DeVries finished with 17 points and six rebounds.
This was the first of four straight games against ranked teams for Indiana. Next up is No. 12 Michigan State on Tuesday night in East Lansing.
They'll have to get over this bad loss quickly. Losing second-half leads has become a trend. The same thing happened with road losses at Minnesota and Kentucky. And now it's happened at home.
"Yeah, it’s something I talked to the team about, and we’ve been talking to the team about,'' DeVries said. "When they’re executing the way that they did the first 25 minutes, it looks really good, and they’re doing a great job, and they’re defending and getting movement and things. As soon as you get away from that a little bit and now the turnovers or maybe the lack of communication on a few of those possessions, now all of a sudden everything you’ve built up for 25 minutes goes away in a hurry.
"That’s something we’ve had a few moments this year where that’s happened. We’ve talked to them a lot about the next play mentality, win that next play, and not compound mistakes. I thought tonight, again, for a stretch there was a period where we let one mistake turn into two. Then instead of digging in and really making sure now we get a quality possession the next time, we compounded it with another turnover. It led to back-to-back to back. All of a sudden your lead is gone, and momentum is real. It shifted pretty quickly there.''