On March 11th, 11th seed Indiana took on 14th seed Nebraska in the first, and what turned out to be the only, round in the 2020 Big Ten Basketball Tournament. Indiana would pick up the first round win, beating the Cornhuskers 89 to 64.
Indiana freshman Trayce Jackson-Davis had a double double with 11 points and 17 rebounds, which was a career high. Armaan Franklin lead the team with 13 points. Devonte Green and Justin Smith both had 12 points and Al Durham had 11. Indiana shot 53% as a team.
The Cornhuskers were led by Kevin Cross who scored 23. Haanif Cheatham score 17 and Jervay Green was third on the team with 15. From the field, Nebraska shot 30%.
Indiana led by 9 at the half and just kept adding to the lead up until the end of the game. The story for Nebraska was being down two of their better scores after Coach Hoiberg suspended Dachon Burke Jr. and Cam Mack the week before the game. Surprisingly, Hoiberg replaced them with two football players, quarterback Noah Vendral, and offensive tackel Brant Banks.
After the game, Coach Archie Miller had this to say about their performance. “They made their runs during the (second) half, got us a little bit stationary at times, but I thought overall our guys responded and were able to finish the game in a big way” He also talked about their depth in saying, “I thought we had a lot of guys. We were committed to playing a lot of guys tonight, and we had a lot of guys play valuable minutes and get some things done.”
After the game, Miller sent all of the players back to the hotel instead of going to the interview room because of the news that the NBA suspended their season. He said, “I think, once you start getting the news that we got after the game, I think right now for our players, it’s let’s get cleaned up, let’s get out of here, and let’s get back to the hotel where we can keep our group kind of tight and move forward with tomorrow.”
Indiana’s opportunity to make a run in the tournament was ultimately ended after the remainder of the tournament was cancelled due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
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