Nebraska’s Palmer Jr. named All-Big Ten First Team by coaches

Nebraska defeated Penn State 76-64 in Sunday’s match held at Pinnacle Bank Arena (Lincoln, Neb.) in front of a crowd of 15,991.

Nebraska men’s basketball guard James Palmer was named a first-team all-Big Ten pick by the league’s coaches Monday afternoon.

Williams’ honor was announced Monday.

Prior to taking over for Connie Yori in Lincoln, Willams, a former Husker player and University of Nebraska graduate, spent four successful seasons (2013-16) as the head coach at Dollars, where she led the Coyotes to four straight postseason appearances, two Summit League regular season championships and the school’s first league tourney title and NCAA Tournament berth. Will the Nittany Lions go dancing, in my opinion, no. Penn State missed out on their chance to pad their resume in the regular season and now they have no choice but to do it in the Big Ten Tournament and I just don’t think they have what it takes to make a Big Ten finals run.

They could also end up being Nebraska’s ticket to the dance if the Huskers could add another win over UM in the quarterfinals of the conference tournament on Friday (assuming MI beats Iowa/Illinois on Thursday).

The Big Ten tournament tips off Wednesday at Madison Square Garden. Sunday’s game features a bubble team who’s NCAA Tournament chances are hanging on by a string, and a declining bubble team that is starting to fall out of the picture. Nebraska last made the NCAA Tournament in 2014. Eric Schierhorn relieved Robson midway through the final stanza, making one save on two shots.

What does Nebraska need to do to clinch NCAA Tournament berth?

Brad Davison finished with 30 points for Wisconsin (14-17, 7-11), including a 3 with 4.7 seconds left that had hometown fans holding out hope for an upset. Nebraska’s conference mark was good enough for a fourth place finish and the 13 conference wins are the most in school history.

Nebraska needs another top-tier win, and another win over MI would bring that.

“I look at this: everybody’s into the analytics, I’m into the eye test”.

Yes, Penn State lacks depth at the center position, but no matter what depth you had, coming out of Lincoln with a win was going to be tough, especially when Nebraska was also playing for their season. Can the Huskers have the same magic on a neutral court? We knew that a penalty kill is what you gotta do to be successful. Nebraska has won 7 of their last 8 games and has been led by their defense this season as they Cornhuskers now rank 84th in scoring defense, 84th in defensive FG%, and 10th in blocks per game.

How did Nebraska get here?

It hasn’t been a flawless season.

While everyone was ecstatic about the team’s success, everyone knew the tough road ahead: at Purdue, vs MI and at Nebraska. Yet the Huskers never lost focused, and even found some fun along the way. “I know I’m prejudiced to the conference, but I appreciate the job Tim (Miles) has done”.