Story by NU Athletic Communication
- Juwan Gary led Nebraska with 22 points, his fifth 20-point game this season and eighth of his career.
- Brice Williams added 20 points for his fifth straight 20-point game. His five consecutive 20-point game matches the most by a Husker in the Big Ten era (Keisei Tominaga, 2023)
- Overall, Williams scored at least 20 points for the 13th time this season. His 13 20-point games have tied Terran Petteway (2014-15) for the most 20-point games in a season since Nebraska joined the Big Ten.
- Nebraska made 16-of-17 free throws in the game, finishing with a season-high 94.1 percent from the charity stripe.
- Gary and Williams each scored 20 points in the same game for the fourth time this season. Overall, Nebraska has had five games this season when two players scored 20 or more points.
- Andrew Morgan had 15 points in the game. That marked his second-highest scoring game of the season, trailing only the 17 points he had at Maryland on Jan. 19. In two games against the Terrapins, Morgan was 12-of-18 from the field and scored 32 points.
- Braxton Meah played 18 minutes off the bench, his most action in a Big Ten game this season. Meah scored two points and had four rebounds, one assist and one blocked shot.
- Maryland shot 58.5 percent, becoming only the third team to shoot over 50 percent against Nebraska this season.
- Ahron Ulis led NU with four assists and in two games against Maryland had a 14-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio.
Nebraska Forward Juwan Gary
On battling injuries/sickness tonight“It’s tough, especially at this point in the season, for sure. You never think that the day of the game you might get sick, but that stuff happens. Life happens. But at the end of the day, I told Brice (Williams) and Connor (Essegian), ‘I got y’all backs’. I don’t care if I have to play 40 minutes, which I did today, but I knew guys weren’t 100%. I know I was, so they needed my voice for sure today. They needed me to help them out, and I was definitely going to do that. Like I said before, we had no urgency. We had two guys not at 100% and one guy down, but at the end of the day, that still doesn’t define what we did today. We didn’t come out with any intensity, no toughness, nothing like that. And when we did, it was too late. We can’t keep doing that, for sure, especially at the end of the season.”
On Maryland’s scoring
“Coach Nate (Loenser) always says, ‘don’t get deflated on tough shots’. But when you’re trying to make a comeback, especially when you’re down two, they made the last two or three shots, tough layups, floaters, stuff like that kind of hurts. When you play good defense for the first 15 to 20 seconds of the shot clock. At the end of the day, like I said, we wouldn’t be in that predicament if we threw the first punch. A team is going to shoot crazy shots, they’re going to make some of them, they’re going to miss some. Tonight, they made some ones like that. But we’re going to look at the film, we have another road trip, and another opportunity to bond with the guys. We have the opportunity to get two road wins, too. We’ll be good, we’re in a good position right now. We fought back, just to get back in the conversation for being in the tournament. I’m very proud of the guys that I’m playing with, this whole team, and I think we did a lot to be in the situation we’re in. We came back from a six-game losing streak and went on a four-game winning streak. We’re going to flush this away. It stings a little bit, but at the same time, we can’t dwell on this. We have a good team to play on Sunday, and we need to get the ‘W’ on that one too.”
Head Coach Fred Hoiberg
On defense and Maryland making shots“That’s a really good team that’s very hot right now, as hot as any team in the league. They are tough shot makers and the one thing we said was that you can’t let it deflate you. The ones that hurt you are the transition ones. Those are the ones that you contest them in the half-court, if they make those all game, you shake their hand and you move on. I thought we had a couple plays where we rushed it in the paint. Went up one foot, fell down, and that’s what got them out in transition. Brice (Williams) had a really good one where he pump faked (Derik) Queen up in the air and got himself to the free-throw line, but I thought we were rushed at the rim. We talked about making smart plays at the rim, I thought that fueled their break a little bit. But again, that’s a really good basketball team. Queen coming off 29 and 15 in his last one, and we certainly missed Berke (Büyüktuncel) out there for size on him. I thought our guys battled, but that size, length, skill-set that he has, that’s hard to battle when you’re down one of your 6’10”, and Andrew’s (Morgan) fourth foul was not a good call. We found a good formula with Andrew where we were getting the ball, we were running short pick and roll actions and getting into the pocket, and Andrew was going to work on the cleared side. That hurt us when he picked up that fourth. It’s part of it though, those things happen, you have to keep battling, you have to keep fighting. I know that Brice (Williams) had an unbelievable look after that timeout, and it hit every part of the rim and didn’t go in. You can't ask for a better look or a better shot. That thing was halfway down and unfortunately just didn’t fall, that would’ve cut it to one. Again, those things happen, it can’t deflate us. It’s been a while since we’ve lost and we have to handle it the right way. We have to get back to work tomorrow. We have a big game coming up on Sunday, it’s going to be a mental day tomorrow with a lot of guys playing a lot of minutes, and two guys that did not participate this morning in our film session, or our walkthrough, with Connor (Essegian) and Brice. Those guys are not feeling very well and I’m proud of Brice going out and battling his ass off. He played 38 minutes, Connor had some good looks, he had a couple that were halfway down, but he was struggling, and it was really a game-time decision. He went out and battled it out, but it’s a tough one. We haven’t lost in a while and we have to respond, and what happened last time we lost can not happen again. We can not afford to go on a streak right now.”
On when he found out Connor Essegian and Brice Williams were going to be good to go
“Brice (Williams) at the shoot-around, he participated in about half of it, then he sat down. The biggest thing was low energy, fatigue and body aches. That’s really what they were experiencing, and I know there’s so much going around right now. I got a call this morning from our athletic trainer, that Brice had reached out, and he had a tough night. He didn’t sleep and had chills pretty much all night long. He came in and got an IV before the game and said he was good to go. Connor (Essegian), you could see it in his face, I thought he was really flushed. It’s hard to go out there and play against a team with those kinds of athletes and those kinds of shotmakers when you’re not 100%, but I’m proud of those guys for giving it an effort. Hopefully it doesn’t go out through the team, we’re doing some preventative things right now to hope it doesn’t spread throughout the group.”
On keeping the morale up
“This had nothing to do with effort, I thought our guys played hard, they battled. We faced probably the hottest team in the league right now. That’s six of seven for that team right now. Their only loss, they had a double-digit lead at Ohio State, so this team’s rolling. We had our chances. We were right there at the end. Same thing as when we played at their place a couple of weeks ago. We cut that thing back down to one possession at the end, we tied it actually. We couldn’t get the stop when it mattered. We’re hanging with the best team. I’ve said this before, you can play well in this league and lose. I know I’m going to go back in the film and there’s going to be some things we need to get better at. But there’s also some possessions where we guarded really well, and they made a tough shot.”
Maryland Head Coach Kevin WillardOn the road win“Every road win this time of year is huge.”
On the biggest key in the final minutes
“This team continues to grow a little bit. We went back and watched the film against Ohio State and some of the breakdowns we had against Rutgers, and they just continued to make plays.”
On facing Nebraska’s defense