Nebraska men’s basketball had no business emerging the victor Sunday afternoon in Iowa City.
Iowa reeled in 21 offensive rebounds and turned those into 31 second chance points. The Hawkeyes added 21 points off of 15 Nebraska turnovers. The Huskers had 21 total points between second chance and Iowa turnovers.
And yet, when the final buzzer sounded on Senior Day in Iowa City, NU had more points on the scoreboard.
Nebraska (16-15, 9-11 Big Ten) beat Iowa 81-77. The win, pair with December’s 66-50 win in Lincoln, gives Big Red their first season sweep of the Hawkeyes since joining the Big Ten in 2011-12.
NU came out hot, with freshman Jamarques Lawrence hitting his first of what would be five 3s in the first minute. Sam Griesel and Keisei Tominaga each added their own triples over the next couple minutes.
The Huskers got out to an 18-9 lead, but then Iowa started to make their case for holding onto the 2-seed in this week’s Big Ten Conference Tournament.
Patrick McCaffery hit a 3, his first of five first-half triples, to spark a 12-0 Hawkeye run.
By the half, Iowa was up four points.
The home team never led by more than seven after the break, but Nebraska didn’t take that lead away until a Sam Hoiberg 3 with 8:16 to go. From there, Iowa made just one more shot, which came with 6:12 on the clock.
Nebraska simply out-toughed Iowa on the road to steal a win in the regular season finale.
NU shot 58.5 percent for the game, including 14-of-26 from 3, but only shot eight free throws. Iowa made 11-of-17 free throws to go with a 36.5 percent shooting performance, adding 12-of-37 triples.
Iowa took 24 more shots in the game than Nebraska.
Four Huskers scored in double figures, led by 16 from Griesel. Lawrence finished next in line with 15 points.
The balanced scoring extended beyond those in double digits, as Wilhelm Breidenbach, Hoiberg, and Derrick Walker all finished nine points each. Walker also had a team-high 12 rebounds.
With other results earlier in the day, Nebraska was already eliminated from a first-round bye. The Huskers will open Big Ten Conference Tournament play on Wednesday in Chicago.