Game recap: Michigan gets stomped on the road by Nebraska

Michigan barely pulled out a win on Monday against Maryland after a quick turnaround from playing Michigan State on Saturday.

On Thursday night in their third game in six days, the Wolverines finally looked out of gas.

Nebraska (14-7, 5-3 Big Ten) controlled nearly the entire way, beating U-M (16-5, 5-3) 72-52 for the first time since 1964 and moved onto 11-1 at home this season.

The loss dropped the Wolverines to an even 3-3 on the road this season and was their first loss to Nebraska since they joined the Big Ten.

Summary

It was a pair of 5-0 runs to open the game on both sides, but the Wolverines started the game shooting 4-of-5 from the field to take a 9-7 lead into the first media timeout.

The Huskers would really start to heat their offense up with an 8-0 run that led to a 18-12 U-N lead with 11:27 to play in the opening half.

U-M would continue to stay cold from the floor and a couple of junior guard James Palmer Jr. buckets would give the Huskers a 28-16 lead with 4:10 to play.

The Wolverines would get a triple from sophomore guard Zavier Simpson, which was their only field goal over the last 11:10 of the forst half. At the break, U-N held a 32-21 lead.

The Wolverines turned the ball over nine times and shot just 32 percent (8-of-25) from the floor in the first half. Transfer guard Charles Matthews led the Wolverines with 10 points.

The Huskers were the opposite. They shot 60 percent (15-of-25) from the floor and turned it over six times. Junior forward Isaac Copeland led U-N with 10 points.

To open the second half, the Huskers didn’t stop playing good offense.

Another 6-0 run would propel U-N to grow its lead to 14 points, 41-27, at the 15:09 mark of the second half.

It wouldn’t get any better for the maize and blue.

The Huskers would go on a 14-4 run, highlighted by a pair of senior guard Anton Gill 3-balls to give the Huskers a 48-31 lead with under 12 minutes to play.

They would never give up the double digit lead for the remainder of regulation.

Four players scored in double figures for the Huskers, with Palmer leading the way by racking up 19 points. As a team, U-N shot 55.3 percent from the field and 45.5 percent (5-of-11) from beyond the arc.

U-M did only turn the ball over three times in the second half, but still couldn’t buy a bucket and shot 37.5 percent from the floor and 22.2 percent (4-of-18) from deep. The Wolverines did out-rebound U-N 32-29, but could only manage six total assists in the game.

Game notes

• At one point in the first half, the Wolverines didn’t score a point for 6:05 and fell behind by 10 points.
• Since coming into the conference, the Huskers were 0-8 against U-M and held a lead for just over 17 minutes in those games. Tonight, they led for 32:56 and controlled the game from essentially start to finish.
• Moritz Wagner was held to just two points on just five shots. He was a non-factor the entire game.
• The win was the first win over a ranked opponent for the Huskers since 2004. It was Michigan’s largest loss to an unranked team since March 15, 2007 when they lost to Florida State 87-66 in the second round of the National Invitational Tournament (NIT).