
Inability to rebound
This one is not necessarily an effort problem because they have been trying. Rather, they do not have the personnel to do better in this area. Their lack of ability to rebound is really concerning and may be their biggest obstacle heading into the rest of conference play and postseason play in March.
Nebraska basketball is not a good rebounding team. They have struggled against teams with dominant big men like Maryland and Michigan State. The statistics, at least from a defensive perspective show that. They are last in the conference in defensive rebounding. In 20 games, they have touted 743 rebounds. That breaks down to 20.3 rebounds per contest. On the offensive end, they are a bit better. They rank seventh in the conference with 723 rebounds in 20 games. That breaks down to 36.2 rebounds per contest.
Nebraska basketball also has one of the lowest rebounding margins in the entire conference. Ranking 13th in the conference, they get outrebounded by almost a rebound per game. That may not seem like a lot, but when 11 teams in your conference have a positive rebounding margin, that is a huge issue. It has been something hampering the Nebraska basketball for the entire season, and this issue has only been magnified in conference play. If this team wants to make the postseason and go deep into March, they need to be able to fix their rebounding problems.
On Saturday against Ohio State, Tanner Borchardt really struggled trying to rebound the basketball. He didn’t look comfortable out there against the big men of Ohio State and although he made some gritty plays diving for loose balls, he just did not have the impactful rebounding needed from his position.
Hopefully, this is something that the program can address before it’s too late. However, the fact remains that they need to get a big man who can rebound the basketball and a player who is established into the program. The lack of rebounding and the lack of established rebounders on the roster really has hurt Nebraska to this point.