Nebraska basketball plays best game of year in win over Boston College
The Nebraska basketball team won a must-win game against Boston College, 71-62.
If the game against Boston College was a turning point for the Nebraska basketball team, then it appears the season took a turn for the “much better.” In what was unequivocally the best-played game, from start to finish of the year, the Huskers showed a kind of toughness a Tim Miles coached team has been missing the last few years.
That isn’t to say the Cornhuskers punched their ticket to the big dance this year. If there is a hallmark of a Miles team, it is inconsistency. Still, the Huskers came into Wednesday night fully aware this was a game they needed to win.
Boston College isn’t a juggernaut but it has some serious talent on its roster. Ky Bowman and Jerome Robinson might be the best guard combo Nebraska will play all year. Both players got their points (Robinson with 17 and Bowman with 13) but neither was able to really get going and both struggled to hit the big shot.
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Bowman went 5 for 13 from the field but just 1 for 6 from three-point land. Robinson went just 6 for 17 and 1 for 4 from three-point land. On the flip side, Isaac Copeland, Evan Palmer Jr and Evan Taylor all stepped up big.
Copeland, in particular, seems to be one of the best transfer acquisitions, if not the best transfer acquisition of the Tim Miles era. Copeland scored 15 points while hauling down eight rebounds and dishing out three assists. Last night marked the third game in a row the forward scored in double digits and the fourth time in five games.
Palmer Jr. has now scored in double digits in four straight games thanks to his 15 against Boston College to go along with five steals. In total, the Nebraska basketball team shot 49.1 percent from the field and 47.4 percent from beyond the arc.
The performance, as good as it was, had some negative moments. Perhaps it’s because of those moments that the win looks that much better. After taking a 49-38 lead early in the second half, the Huskers went into one of their patented scoring droughts.
Nebraska basketball fans had to start getting worried when the team went more than six minutes without a bucket, allowing Boston College to cut the lead to two. A James Palmer Jr. jumper at the 12-minute mark made it 51-47 and the Huskers never looked back.
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From that point moving forward the Huskers outscored BC 20-10 over the next 11 minutes to seal the 71-62 victory. The win could be a massive confidence boost for a Nebraska team that is about to enter a murderous stretch of their schedule where they will play four straight Top 25 teams. They start that stretch with a game at #3 Michigan State this coming Sunday.