LINCOLN, Neb. — The Indiana Hoosiers defeat the Nebraska Cornhuskers and earn their first true road victory of the season by a final score of 82-74. Archie Miller’s team moves to 14-4 on the season and 4-3 in the Big Ten. Fred Hoiberg’s Huskers fall to 7-11 and 2-5 in the conference.
Indiana’s 82 points represent their highest offensive total since the last time the two teams met in Bloomington. Their efficient floor performance at over 50% field goal percentage was the best since early December when Indiana defeated Florida State at home.
Battling inclement winter weather, the Indiana basketball team finally arrived in Lincoln, Nebraska after flight delays that prevented them from arriving a day early. Instead, they landed in Lincoln just a few hours before their tip-off this evening. Indiana sought after a coveted road victory at Pinnacle Bank Arena, a place where Iowa and Purdue faltered on their visits.
In terms of road games, the Big Ten has been brutal to the traveling teams. Up until tip-off, there were only six games this season where the road team came out victorious.
Entering today’s contest, discussions around Indiana’s ability to shoot it from the distance floated around social media and news sites, largely due to Indiana’s complete lack of success from behind the arc against Rutgers. On Wednesday night, Indiana only hit their first three-point shot with five minutes remaining in the second half.
The solution? Keep shooting threes.
By no means did Archie Miller want to contain the number of attempts. After a Trayce Jackson-Davis feed to Joey Brunk for the first bucket of the game, the Indiana backcourt took control of the majority of the scoring until five minutes left of the first half. Jackson-Davis and Brunk only took five field goal attempts combined in the first half. Beyond that, the game was mostly played in the backcourt against a sped-up Hoiberg offense.