When will I ever learn; Nebraska ruins Iowa’s Senior Day with 81-77 victory
This felt similar to how the regular season ended in football
By Pat Harty
IOWA CITY, Iowa – When will I ever learn?
The way in which Nebraska’s 81-77 victory played out on Senior Day at Carver-Hawkeye Arena never really had crossed my mind.
And that’s on me because I should’ve known better to assume anything in what has been a strange and unpredictable season filled with exhilarating peaks and devasting valleys.
I never should have assumed that the Iowa men’s basketball team would defeat Nebraska just because it was Senior Day, and because Iowa had won its previous two games in impressive fashion, including by 22 points at Indiana this past Tuesday.
Nebraska has been playing much better down the stretch and also whipped the Hawkeyes 66-50 on Dec. 29th in Lincoln. And yet, I still didn’t give Fred Hoiberg’s team a chance on Sunday, but it was able to prove me, and the oddsmakers that made Iowa a 10 1/2-point favorite, wrong.
It was similar to football when the underdog Cornhuskers kept Iowa from winning the Big Ten West Division by pulling off a 24-17 upset at Kinnick Stadium in the regular season finale.
Nebraska tried its best to ruin Iowa’s Senior Day and was able to do just that as Iowa finished the regular season with records of 19-12 overall and 11-9 in the Big Ten.
The loss kept Iowa from being a No. 2 seed in the Big Ten Tournament, but Iowa still has a chance of getting a double bye in the conference tournament if Northwestern were to lose at Rutgers later on Sunday.
The loss was hard to explain from a statistical standpoint.
Iowa fell short despite having 12 steals to Nebraska’s one, despite having a 31-11 advantage in second-chance points, despite having a 21-10 advantage in points off turnovers, despite taking 21 more shots from the field (74 to 53), and despite having a 31-18 advantage in bench points.
Nebraska pulled off the upset mostly because it made big shots at pivotal times, including eight 3-point baskets in the second half, while Iowa didn’t make a basket in the final six minutes of the second half.
Nebraska finished 14-of-26 overall from 3-point range, while Iowa made 12 threes, but it took 37 attempts. Iowa also missed 14 of its 17 shots from 3-point range in the second half.

“You’ve got to give them credit. They made shots,” Iowa coach Fran McCaffery said of Nebraska, which finished 16-15 in the regular season. “They moved it. When you make 14 threes, you’ve got a good shot to win.”
The day started with Iowa seniors Connor McCaffery and Filip Rebraca both being honored right before tip-off, but it ended with Rebraca missing two free throws in the closing seconds, and with Connor McCaffery clearly upset after he was called for a controversial charging foul late in the game.
Connor McCaffery had driven in the lane and made a basket, but instead of drawing a foul and having a chance for a traditional 3-point play, he was called for charging, erasing the basket, and keeping the deficit at 80-77 with 16.8 seconds remaining.
The officials upheld the call after reviewing it on replay.
Nebraska would then hang on to hand Iowa a costly defeat despite losing the statistical battle in so many areas.
“To still find a way, that just shows this team has a lot of resiliency to it,” Hoiberg said. “That’s been the thing I’ve been most pleased with this last month of the season.”
Iowa has been in this position multiple times this season where it has had to bounce back from a tough loss.
Junior forward Patrick McCaffery also had arguably his best performance this season as he made six 3-point baskets and finished with 23 points.
So, there were some silver linings to take from Sunday’s loss.
Junior forward Kris Murray also scored 22 points in what was most likely his last game at Carver-Hawkeye Arena with him projecting as a first-round pick in the 2023 NBA draft.
“We’ve done a good job this year of bouncing back after tough losses,” Kris Murray said. “We’re looking to do the same.
“We know we’ve got two big tournaments coming up, two big things that we want to play for. So, we look forward to that.”
Nebraska bolted to an 18-9 lead, thanks largely to junior guard Keisei Tominaga, who made three of his first four shots from the field and scored seven early points.
He and Connor McCaffery also clearly got on each other’s nerves early in the game with some lose elbows and jawing back and forth.
Patrick McCaffery, meanwhile, helped to dig Iowa out of the early hole by making three shots from 3-point range as the Hawkeyes turned a nine-point deficit to a 26-24 lead with 7:27 left in the first half.

Nebraska hung tough throughout the first half, but Patrick McCaffery also stayed hot from three, making five in the half.
His five 3-point baskets were more than he made during the entire month of February when he appeared in eight games and made 4-of-20 threes.
Iowa attempted 21 shots from 3-point range in the first half and made nine, while the Cornhuskers were 6-of-14 from three in the first half, which ended with Iowa holding a 43-39 lead.
Iowa also had six steals in the first half, but only attempted two free throws, making both.
Iowa had withstood Nebraska’s early spurt to begin the game, but Nebraska also kept the game close heading into the second half.
The first half was a significant improvement for Iowa on offense compared to the first game against Nebraska on Dec. 29th in Lincoln when Iowa was held to a season-low 50 points.
Patrick McCaffery was so hot from three in the first half that when his brother, Connor McCaffery, made his first three in the game, which came about seven minutes into the second half, the public address announcer mistakenly identified Connor as Patrick before correcting himself a few seconds later.
Iowa didn’t stay hot from three in the second half, however, and that ultimately led to a costly loss on Senior Day.