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Huskers Grind Out a Bounce-Back Win at Michigan
After suffering a befuddling home loss to Rutgers over the weekend, the Nebraska women's basketball team picked up a much-needed road victory Tuesday night against the Michigan Wolverines, 65-59.
The Huskers are now 15-8 on the year and 7-5 in the Big Ten. Michigan slipped to 15-9 and 6-6.
The matchup in Ann Arbor was a classic Big Ten dogfight. It was gritty, at times ugly, and between two sides who were desperate for a win.
For Nebraska, this was an incredibly difficult victory. The Huskers earned every point and defensive stop without starter Darian White in the lineup and a short bench that got shorter due to mid-game injuries.
The last time these two sides met, NU walked away with a 19-point victory in Lincoln and outrebounded the Maize and Blue by 18. That was not close to the case Tuesday night. The Wolverines came out firing to begin the game. Their ferocity and determination propelled them to a nine-point lead in the second quarter.
But the Big Red did not back down. As the game went on, the Huskers matched Michigan’s physicality and, inch by inch, got themselves back into the game.
Key buckets from Jaz Shelley, who at one point left the game due to injury, and Alexis Markowski down the stretch kept the team’s NCAA tournament chances alive.
Markowski led all scorers with 18 points and grabbed nine rebounds. Freshman Natalie Potts had a solid game with 12 points and three rebounds, Shelley had a classic 12-point, six-rebound and four-assist performance, and the Huskers got great contributions off the bench from Jessica Petrie and Logan Nissley, who had seven and six points, respectively.
Nebraska will play its biggest game of the season Sunday when Caitlin Clark and the second-ranked Iowa Hawkeyes come to a sold-out Pinnacle Bank Arena.
