Nebrasketball Final: Penn State 56 Nebraska 55

Nebraska traveled to Happy Valley and got themselves in a hole and came oh so close to digging themselves out.

At the worst, they were down 18 points. Many thought it was over at that point. But there's one thing the Huskers do well and that's not give up. No matter how bad the game is, Nebraska doesn't give up and it almost paid off.

With almost 50 seconds left in the game the Huskers had brought the game to a 55-55 tie with two well placed Michael Jacobson free throws. Unfortunatly the ball wouldn't fall in Nebraska's favor after that and one Penn State free throw ended the game. Nebraska had 7 seconds to pull off the win but a last second shot from Shavon fell short and gave the Nittany Lions the win.

Shavon Shields returned this game and took his place in the starting lineup. Many, like myself, thought it would be a long shot that he would play let alone start. Concussions are not something we take lightly anymore. The coaches seemed to not rush his recovery so there was no Lucky for us he came to play. Shields lead the team with a whopping 25 points and 6 rebounds while also going 3-5 from the three point line.

He wasn't terribly needed the first game against Penn State. That was a 70-54 win in Lincoln. A game where we saw Andrew White III put up 35 points. This game, was a different story. White, the savor in Lincoln, could only muster 8 point on the night and was held to 30% from the floor. Nebraska would have probably had this game in the bag if White would have played at his usual level. Having both he and Shields in double digits would have made this a convincing win.

Benny Parker matched him at 8 and they were followed by Tai Webster who had 7. Glynn Watson Jr. traded Tai for his spot on the bench came off and finished with 5. Any productivity dropped of fairly sharply after that.

Penn State came out strong and had both of their top players in double digits. Brandon Taylor put up 19 points and pulled down 10 rebounds while Shep Garner lead the team with 22 points. Fifteen of which were from beyond the arch.

Any chance of an NIT bid are most likely gone for the Big Red this season. Hopefully then can pull at least one more win during the regular season and maybe one or two during the conference tournament. A couple more would hopefully get us into one of the other post season tournaments.

Nebraska heads home to take on #20 Purdue on Tuesday, March 1st.