Nebraska denies road-weary Iowa’s comeback bid, 76-70

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Thorir Thorbjarnarson scored 17 points and Nebraska turned back a second-half Iowa comeback to down the Hawkeyes 76-70 on Tuesday night.

Nebraska (7-8, 2-2 Big Ten) led by seven at the half, but saw Iowa (10-5, 1-3) come back to take its only lead of the game on Joe Weiskamp’s 3-pointer that made the score 51-50 with 12:40 remaining.

The Huskers pushed the lead back to five on Kevin Cross’ dunk with 7:22 left, only to see Iowa tie the score at 59 on another Weiskamp 3-pointer at the 5:19 mark..

Thorbjarnson hit a pair of 3-pointers in a 10-3 Nebraska spurt that put the Huskers up 69-62 on Cam Mack’s layup with 1:47 left. The Hawkeyes got no closer than four down the stretch.

Nebraska opened up a 12 point first half lead on Haanif Cheatam’s free throws with 8:04 left as the Huskers swarming defense frustrated Luka Garza, Iowa’s 6-11 center and leading scorer, who didn’t notch a point in the game’s first 12 minutes.

Garza put up 9 points in the last 7:39 of the half and Iowa cut the Nebraska lead to three. But a late Husker flurry built the lead back to double digits and saw Nebraska up 38-31 at half.

Iowa lost the game at the 3-point and free throw lines. The Hawkeyes hit just 4 of 33 3-point attempts and made just 2 of 5 free throws.

Nebraska made 10 of 26 3-pointers and hit 14 of 26 from the free throw line.

Mack had 17 points for Nebraska. Cheatam had 14 points, Dachon Burke finished with 13 and Cross had 11 points.

Weiskamp led Iowa with 21 points. Garza finished with 16 points and 16 rebounds and Joe Toussaint had 14 points.

The Big Picture

Iowa — Tuesday’s game ended a stretch dating back to Nov. 28 in which Iowa played eight of 10 games away from home. Iowa will have traveled more than 8,000 miles in six weeks when it gets back to Iowa City Tuesday night.

Nebraska — Nebraska has struggled shooting 3-pointers this season, hitting just 33 percent of their 3-point attempts The Huskers warmed up from 3 in the first half, hitting 7 of 16 shots. Nebraska returned to form in the second half, hitting just 3 of 10 3-pointers.

Up Next

Iowa hosts No. 12 Maryland Friday

Nebraska travels to Northwestern Saturday.