Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.LINCOLN — One year ago this weekend, the Nebraska men's basketball team played itself into NCAA tournament consideration.
The Huskers upset No. 3 Texas to move to 18-8 overall and 6-6 in the Big 12 with four winnable conference games left. A 3-1 record in that stretch might have led to the school's first NCAA appearance since 1998.
What happened in the 12 months since is difficult to fathom.
Nebraska lost five of its final six games last season, including a 27-point shelling in the first round of the NIT. This season? The Huskers are 129th in the latest RPI report.
Since that Texas victory, Nebraska is 12-18 overall and 4-14 against conference foes.
Of the 12 victories, only four were over teams with winning records (Missouri, South Dakota State, TCU, Indiana).
Of the 18 losses, 10 were by double-digit margins, which had been rare under sixth-year coach Doc Sadler because of his grind-it-out, play-it-close style. Included is the worst home loss — by 34 points to Ohio State (79-45) — in NU's 116 years of basketball.
More puzzling is that the collapse came from a veteran team — the kind that Sadler said upon his arrival would give him the best chance to win.
The Huskers returned six of their top seven scorers and more than 65 percent of their scoring and rebounding overall.
Yet Nebraska (11-13, 3-10) is on track for a second losing season in three years; is alone in last place in the Big Ten entering Saturday's game with Illinois (16-10, 5-8); and is drawing near record-low fan totals to the Devaney Center.
Hard to comprehend?
"It definitely is, man, especially as a senior,'' said wing Caleb Walker, one of four senior starters. "This is not what we expected. But you can't run away from it.''
Here's a timeline of events since Husker fans stormed the court in celebration a year ago:
• March 15, 2011: Despite losses in four of the final five conference games, Sadler got a two-year contract extension through June 2016. Athletic Director Tom Osborne said: "We feel with the facilities improvements we are making in basketball and the players Doc has returning that the future looks bright.''
• March 16: Wichita State hammered Nebraska 76-49 in the first round of the NIT. Osborne, sitting behind the NU bench, left his seat for good early in the second half.
• April 5: Assistant coach Tracy Webster, a Chicago native and former Wisconsin point guard, resigned to take an assistant's job at Tennessee. He was the only Husker staff member with long-term Big Ten connections. Webster's replacement was Jeremy Cox from South Florida, who had worked with Sadler in Arkansas.
• April 14: Terms of Sadler's reformulated contract were revealed. He received a $100,000 raise to $900,000, and the amount of money NU would owe him if fired increased from $35,417 per month to $66,667 per month for the remaining length of his deal.
• Late May: Center Jorge Brian Diaz joined the Puerto Rico National Team for workouts, but stopped after three days because of his chronic foot problems, which were diagnosed a year earlier at Nebraska.
• Early July: Sadler said center Andre Almeida was struggling to recover from routine offseason knee surgery. Almeida had suffered a knee injury in junior college, and reinjured it at Nebraska.
Also, incoming recruit Dylan Talley arrived suffering from reinjury to his thigh — a calcium-deposit problem he had developed two years earlier while at Binghamton U.
• Late November through mid-December: With its full roster other than Almeida, Nebraska lost at home to Oregon and Wake Forest, needed double overtime to beat USC (6-21, 1-13) and escaped by one point over Florida Gulf Coast.
• Dec. 27-31: With Diaz and Talley sidelined by injury, Nebraska opened Big Ten play with home losses of 64-40 to Wisconsin and 68-55 to Michigan State.
For the game against MSU and its future Hall of Fame coach Tom Izzo, the highest-ranking Nebraska athletic department official in attendance was the associate media relations director.
• Jan. 8, 2012: Diaz and Talley returned to action for Nebraska. Illinois had one starter out with injury and another severely limited. The Huskers lost 59-54.
• Jan. 18: Nebraska fans stormed the court after a 70-69 upset of No. 11 Indiana. The Huskers won despite getting outshot at home 51 percent to 37.7 percent and leading for just 3 minutes, 13 seconds.
• Jan. 21: In front of a season-high crowd of 11,439, Nebraska suffered its worst home loss in school history: 79-45 to No. 6 Ohio State. Fans began leaving in clusters with 12 minutes left.
• Feb. 8: Nebraska scored 15 first-half points in a 62-46 loss to Michigan, the seventh home setback. That's the most in 49 seasons. Wolverine coach John Beilein commented on his difficulty in preparing for the Huskers: "I have no history with Doc Sadler or his players. I've never even seen one of their players in AAU or anything.''
Nebraska's Walker called the past 12 months "a long road.''
"When things like this happen, you can quit,'' he said. "But with this team, I think we keep working every day. We understand what we're facing. But you can't give up on the coaching staff or the players.''
Contact the writer:
402-444-1024, lee.barfknecht@owh.com
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