STARKVILLE, Miss. — Nebraska’s postseason men’s basketball losing skid has reached five games over 10 years.
The Huskers grabbed a one-point lead early in the fourth quarter Wednesday night, but couldn’t hold off Mississippi State in a 66-59 first-round NIT loss.
NU (22-11) finishes tied for the second-most wins in school history.
Scoring droughts have been an issue all season, and another hurt Nebraska against MSU (23-11). The Huskers after taking a 51-50 lead on two James Palmer free throws with 7:41 left, missed 9 of 10 shots in falling behind by eight points.
NU closed to 61-57 with 42 seconds left but got no closer.
Palmer led Nebraska with 13 points, while Isaac Copeland added 12.
In the third quarter, Nebraska wiped away a five-point halftime deficit to tie the game at 40 on guard Evan Taylor’s 3-pointer with 4:52 to go. But by quarter’s end, Mississippi State’s lead was back to five points.
In the first half, Nebraska got an opening 3-pointer from guard Anton Gill, but gave up the lead at 8-7 with 6:06 to go in the first quarter and never got it back.
Mississippi State used a 9-1 run late in the first quarter to go up 15-8, and still led by seven at the end of the quarter.
Nebraska scored the first seven points of the second quarter for a 19-19 tie, but MSU slowly built its lead back to seven points at 30-23, and were still up 33-28 at halftime.