CHICAGO — D.J. Newbill sees the Big Ten tournament as a shot at redemption for Penn State. It was nearly the stage for a big collapse, too.

Newbill scored 26 points, Shep Garner added 19 and Penn State hung on to beat Nebraska 68-65 Wednesday in the Big Ten tournament opener.

The 13th-seeded Nittany Lions (17-15) advanced in the tournament for the first time since a run to the final in 2011, despite letting a 16-point lead in the second half dwindle to one.

They came away with their second-straight win after dropping six in a row when Shavon Shields missed a 3 for 12th-seeded Nebraska (13-18) at the buzzer.

Penn State will play No. 5 seed Iowa on Thursday.

“We’re disappointed in how we finished in Big Ten play,” Newbill said. “We’ve got another opportunity to come out here and prove to ourselves and prove to everybody we’re better than what we showed.”

Garner hit five 3-pointers. Newbill nailed four from long range and keyed a 14-1 run early in the second half that stretched the lead from three to 16. Penn State also blocked a tournament-record 16 shots.

The loss was the ninth straight for Nebraska, which got 29 points from Terran Petteway. Shields scored 20 and grabbed 10 rebounds. But after making the NCAA tournament last season, the Cornhuskers are on the outside looking in.

“As excited as I was last year is as disappointed as I am this year,” coach Tim Miles said. “And I talked a lot of trash on the golf course last year so I was pretty pumped up.”

He believes that the program is headed in the right direction, that the incoming recruits will provide a big lift. But enduring a run like this has not been easy.

Things got so bad that Miles actually banned his players from their plush locker room and forbade them from speaking to reporters following a 28-point blowout by Iowa last month.