After leading the Huskers to the quarterfinals of the Big Ten Tournament, Nebraska senior guard James Palmer Jr. was named to the All-Tournament Team.
Palmer was joined on the team by Most Outstanding Player Cassius Winston of tournament winner Michigan State, Ignas Brazdeikis and Zavier Simpson of runner-up Michigan State and Minnesota’s Jordan Murphy.
The Spartans used a 10-0 run to close out a 65-60 win over Michigan in the Big Ten Tournament title game on Sunday afternoon.
Palmer, a Third-Team All-Big Ten pick for his regular season performance, totaled 73 points in three games, leading the 13th-seeded Huskers to wins against No. 12 Rutgers and No. 5 Maryland before No. 4 Wisconsin ended their run in the quarterfinals.
Palmer went off for 34 points against Rutgers, a school record for the Huskers in the Big Ten Tournament and one point shy of the overall single-game scoring record for the Big Ten Tournament. He also made 14 free throws on 22 attempts, setting a tournament record for attempts. He followed that up with an efficient 24 points against Maryland before running out of gas in the quarterfinals, mustering just 15 points on 6-of-21 shooting against the Badgers.
Overall, Palmer averaged 24.3 points, 3.0 rebounds, 2.3 steals and 1.7 assists while shooting 43.4 percent from the field, 31.6 percent from 3 and 65.6 percent from the free-throw line.
The Huskers finished the season 18-16 overall and were not one of the eight Big Ten teams selected for the NCAA Tournament. The Big Ten placed more teams in the tournament than any other conference.
Jacob Padilla has been writing for Hail Varsity since 2015. He covers football, volleyball men’s basketball and prep sports. He also co-hosts the Nebraska Preps Postgame and Nebraska Shootaround podcasts for the Hurrdat Media and Hail Varsity podcast networks. His love of basketball can best be described as an obsession and if you need to find him, he’s probably in a gym somewhere watching, coaching or playing hoops.
