A pair of Big Ten men’s basketball teams seek to end recent on-court disappointment when Iowa travels to Nebraska for a conference regular-season finale Sunday.
No. 9 Nebraska (25-5, 14-5 Big Ten) enters the contest smarting from Tuesday’s season-worst 20-point loss at UCLA, while the Iowa Hawkeyes (20-10, 10-9) fell to No. 3 Michigan 71-68 in their last outing.
Iowa went on an 11-1 run to tie Michigan 64-64 with 1:57 left, and 66-all with 52 seconds left, but the Wolverines prevailed.
“We went down 10 against arguably the best team in the country,” first-year Iowa coach Ben McCollum said, “If they’re not, I don’t know who is. I mean they’re pretty darn good. They’ve got length, they’ve got athleticism.”
Iowa senior guard Bennett Stirtz led with 21 points against Michigan. Stirtz averages 20.5 points and 4.5 assists per game. Other season standouts are guard/forward Tavion Banks (10.4 points, 4.7 rebounds) and forward Cam Manyawu (6.9 points, 4.8 rebounds).
“Hopefully our daily habits are showing up,” McCollum said. “I mean, that’s the biggest thing is they have to show up with the daily habits.”
For Nebraska, defensive lapses doomed the Cornhuskers in a 72-52 loss against UCLA.
“We just weren’t crisp on our closeouts, we missed a couple rotations,” Nebraska coach Fred Hoiberg said following the UCLA game. “Our communication wasn’t where it needed to be — things we have done exceptionally well all season long.”
“Give credit to UCLA, they played a lot harder than we did tonight and we got what we deserved.”
Nebraska is led by 6-foot-7 forward Pryce Sandfort’s 18.0 points and 4.8 rebounds per game, and 6-foot-10 forward Rienk Mast (13.6 points, team-high 6-0 rebounds). Sandfort also leads in 3-point field goals made (108).
“We learn, put the game behind us whether we win or lose,” Hoiberg said. “We do the same routine after every game. We’ll watch the film like we always do. We’ll have an edit for offense, and edit for defense.”
“We’ll go out and put the game plan in against Iowa and then we’ll move on and have a couple of days of practice.”
Among Iowa’s season highlights is the 57-52 win against Nebraska on Feb. 17. It was Iowa’s first home win against a top-10 team in seven years. Hundreds of students raced onto the court for a post-game celebration.
“Every single person that I talk to face-to-face is as positive as it gets and can see it trending in the right direction,” McCollum said of the Hawkeyes first 20-win season since 2021-22.
“They can see it, and I can see it,” McCollum said. “We’ve just, you know, we’ve got to get there. You can see it trading in the right direction. We just need a little more to be able to get over the hump.”
