Fred Hoiberg reveals when Nebraska lost Purdue game, and it wasn’t in OT

After a 20-0 start for Nebraska, they have lost three of their last four. The latest for Nebraska was a loss on Tuesday night to Purdue. The Cornhuskers were able to force overtime against Purdue, after making a major comeback, but still fell 80-77.

While Nebraska lost the game, head coach Fred Hoiberg pointed out when they lost the contest, and it was not when the final buzzer sounded, according to Eli Rodriguez of The Daily Nebraska.

“We lost that game in the first three minutes,” Hoiberg said. “It’s hard to climb out of a hole against a team like that, that’s got that type of experience, leadership.”

The Cornhuskers were down 14-1 just 3:16 into the game. They did not hit their first field goal until 15:42 left in the first half, when Braden Frager hit a layup after coming in off the bench.

“In this league, if you want to win, you have to play for 40 minutes. We are going to learn from this one, and we need to have two days of great preparation heading into Saturday,” the coach added.

Nebraska outscored Purdue 67-54 in the final 36 minutes of regulation, but after being down so much early on, it could only force overtime. By then, exhaustion had clearly set in, with multiple missed open looks and bad turnovers at the end of the overtime period.

“I thought we executed our late-game package very well,” Hoiberg said. “But, unfortunately, we didn’t have enough.”

The Cornhuskers were down 22-points ealry in the second half, after trailing by 16 at the break. Had they made the comeback, it would have broken a school Big Ten record. Nebraska trailed by twenty in the second half against Northwestern last year. They would storm back and win the game 68-64 over the Wildcats in regulation.

Interestingly enough, on Saturday, Nebraska will face Northwestern, nearly one year to the day that they made the 20-point comeback. Hopefully for Cornhuskers fans, they will not need a comeback in that one.

The post Fred Hoiberg reveals when Nebraska lost Purdue game, and it wasn’t in OT appeared first on ClutchPoints.