A slow start. A furious comeback. Questionable officiating. Brice Williams with a historic performance. All of it ending in an a disappointing loss.
The entire 2024-25 Nebraska men’s basketball experience was neatly encapsulated in Tuesday’s 116-114 double-overtime defeat that all but bumps the Huskers onto the wrong side of the NCAA bubble with one game remaining in the regular season.
Williams set a single-game school-record, scoring 43 points on 16-for-29 shooting including 5-for-9 from three-point range. He passed Eric Piatkowski, who scored 42 in a March 11, 1994 Big Eight Tournament game against Oklahoma. Juwan Gary added 24 on an efficient 9-for-12 shooting, while Connor Essegian scored 16 and Andrew Morgan tallied 14. Bruce Thornton led Ohio State with 29 points, while Micah Parrish and Devin Royal added 22 and John Mobley, Jr., tallied 20.
The patented slow start came as the Buckeyes built a 14-6 lead through the first three minutes of the game and a 19-8 advantage with 12:52 to go until halftime. OSU led 26-16 with nine minutes to go in the first half until Nebraska’s first furious rally to get back into it. An 8-1 run by the Huskers melted the deficit to two with 6:35 to play in the first half. Ohio State led 45-39 at the break. Nebraska took its first lead three minutes into the second half, when Williams drained a three-pointer to give NU a 48-47 lead.
But the Buckeyes built a 10-point lead, 63-53 with 12:38 to go in regulation. The lead grew to 11 with 11:29 to go in the second half before a second furious Nebraska comeback, a 7-0 run, got the Huskers back into the game. Then the questionable officiating intervened. A flagrant foul called on Williams, disputed in postgame comments by Coach Fred Hoiberg, gave Ohio State a four-point possession and rebuilt the OSU lead to 70-62 with eight minutes to go in regulation.
The Buckeyes led by eight points with just over four minutes to go in the second half, and led by seven with 2:13 to go in regulation. An 8-1 Husker run tied the game at 88 with 42 seconds to go. Mobley hit a free throw with 16 seconds to go to give OSU an 89-88 lead with 16 seconds to go. Williams took the ball for Nebraska, drove to the basket and drew the foul with eight seconds to go. He made the first free throw to tie the game at 89, but he missed the second free throw. Ohio State didn’t get a shot off before the end of regulation, and the game moved to overtime.
Nebraska got the early advantage in the first overtime, scoring the first five points. The Huskers held a five-point lead with 1:51 to go in the OT before a 7-2 Ohio State run tied the game at 99 to send it to a second overtime. Once again, the Huskers scored first in the OT and led 103-100 a minute into the second overtime period. But a 7-0 OSU gave the Buckeyes the lead for good. A three-point play by Ahron Ulis cut the lead to 107-106 with 1:07 to go in the second overtime, but Ohio State scored the next five points to get breathing room.
The final bit of questionable officiating came with three seconds to go in the game. After a Brice Williams layup cut the OSU lead to 114-111 with three seconds to go in the second overtime, an OSU pass came toward the sideline and was knocked out of bounds by Nebraska. The Ohio State player inbounding the ball from the sideline shuffled multiple steps before throwing the ball in, which was a clear traveling violation, missed by the officials. The ball was thrown in, the Buckeye was fouled and the lead grew back to five after Mobley hit both free throws. A Williams three in the final seconds only drew the Huskers to within two.
The loss, Nebraska’s fourth in a row and fifth in the last six, has all but knocked the Huskers out of the NCAA field. Nebraska will look to at least secure a spot in the Big Ten Tournament and possibly keep faint NCAA tournament hopes alive in the regular season final Sunday against Iowa at Pinnacle Bank Arena at 11:30 a.m. Pregame coverage begins at 10:30 a.m. on KLIN.