Nebraska basketball has essentially hit the halfway point of its season. While the last few games have been far from what Husker fans hoped to see, there’s still a lot of basketball left ot play.
However, the Nebraska Cornhuskers also know that things are even more important because of how their resume has taken a hit with losses to Iowa and Purdue. Not to mention how bad they’ve looked on the road in the Big Ten.
Things can obviously change over the course of the next few weeks. Teams can jump quads and the resume can shift, but as of right now, the Nebraska basketball team is in decent, if not fantastic shape when it comes to hoping to make the Big Dance.
Nebraska basketball in the rankings:
NET: 44
KenPom: 41
AP: NR
The Nebraska Cornhuskers Losses
77-74 to Saint Mary’s
89-52 to Michigan State
97-87 to Iowa
104-68 to Purdue
The bad news here is that all four of these losses are Quad 1 losses so they don’t hurt the Huskers’ resume that much. That’s why NU has only fallen 11 spots from 33rd to 44th in NET despite two straight losses.
On the other hand, both Saint Mary’s and Iowa were games that could have been Quad 1 wins.
Nebraska Basketball’s Quad 1 wins
74-63 at Creighton
That’s it. That’s why a close loss to Saint Mary’s and a blown 15-point lead to Iowa hurts so much.
Nebraska basketball’s Quad 2 wins
85-68 vs Indiana
78-66 vs Oregon State
66-58 vs UCLA
The good news is that’s a decent number of Quad 2 wins help the Husker resume. The bad news is that all three of those teams aren’t having great seasons and it’s possible one or all of them could change to Quad 3 at some point.
Nebraska basketball’s Quad 3 wins
66-49 vs Murray State
69-55 vs Hawaii
Nebraska basketball’s Quad 4 wins
87-67 vs UT Rio Grand Valley St.
63-58 vs Bethune Cookman
86-60 vs Farleigh Dickinson
96-79 vs South Dakota
103-72 vs North Florida
77-43 vs Southern
Nebraska basketball the rest of the way
Quad 1 games
At Maryland (22)
At Wisconsin (24)
Vs Illinois (9)
At Oregon (21)
Vs Ohio State (30)
Vs Maryland (22)
At Northwestern (56)
At Penn State (51)
Vs Michigan (11)
At Ohio State (30)
15 games left in the Nebraska basketball team’s season, 10 of those games are against teams that are Quad 1 opponents. That’s the good news. The bad news is that 6 of 10 are on the road. NU already has the aforementioned blown 15-point lead to Iowa and two 30 point losses on the road this season. The Huskers are historically bad on the road, so far, they’ve been worse.
Quad 2 games
At Washington (97)
Vs Iowa (45)
Not much room for error in Quad 2 games as there are only two the rest of the way. The good news here is that Iowa is a beatable team at the PBA and Washington isn’t very good.
Quad 3 games
Vs Rutgers (95)
Vs USC (76)
Vs Minnesota (147)
These are absolute must wins. The good news here is that they’re all home games. The Nebraska basketball team doesn’t have any more Quad 4 games on the schedule and that’s good too. You never want too many of those, even if you win them all.