I once saw a gratuitous sex scene involving Phillip Seymour Hoffman. The film was Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. The day? Creepily enough: Father’s day. My dad, ever the film auteur had taken us all to the local art-house movie theater. You know, a place where they don’t just show movies, they show films. What he didn’t know, and what none of us saw coming—not my horrified mother, my appalled brother and certainly not your eyes-bulging in horror author – was that this particular film started out with about 30 seconds of Seymour Hoffman’s naked ass really getting it on with the oft-nudey Marisa Tomei.

I watched in abject horror, eyes eventually widening to Nicolas Cage-ian size and my jaw crashing open like a Great White in mid seal-grab during an uber slow-mo shot during Shark Week. Mercifully, it ended. That movie, however, didn’t get much more family-friendly. Even for a family full of such grizzled, hard-core movie fans, Before the Devil Knows Your Dead was intense and stomach-churningly gritty. (*Author’s note: If you’ve seen it, you know how weird of a father’s day film it would be: featuring trans-gendered drug dealers and patricide, among other bizarre themes.)

At family gatherings we still bring up that ill-fated sex scene. We don’t remember the academy award winners that were involved, or much else about the day celebrating my father. But that kind of ugliness is legendary.

That’s what we saw on Saturday night in the Nebraska V.S. Cincinnati game. It was grotesque. It was brutal. It was Phillip Seymour Hoffman sex scene ugly. But it was unforgettable. Some people, when faced with what amounted to complete on-court insanity between the Huskers and the Bearcats, may have turned to statistics. Others may have turned to the clichés that seem to come so naturally to all of us when discussing sports. Me? I, predictably, turn to movies to help me figure out what I just saw.

Unlike that all-time, pantheon moment of Hatch family awkwardness, however, there was a silver lining to this exercise in corneal cub-stomping. The Huskers were able to pull out the win. Quite frankly, it was remarkable.

On Saturday Night, the Huskers found themselves in a bar brawl. I’m talking bottles breaking over heads, John Wayne sliding dudes down a bar, smashing them through whiskey shots and ash trays. The whole thing. They took the game and turned it inot an alley-way brawl for 50 minutes and somehow got the last laugh.

They shot a rousing 32.7% from the field and turned the ball over approximately fiftyleven times (*Author’s note: alright, more like 22, but it felt like it numbered in the thousands.) but were able to somehow eke out a double overtime win against a 2013 NCAA Tournament team.

How did they do it? How did they miss 68% of the shots they took and still somehow emerge victorious? By fighting. Clawing. Scratching. By turning the game into the climactic fight scene from Rocky IV where the Italian Stallion endures such an absurd beating that you can hardly watch, but then somehow digs deep enough to rally for the ugliest style of win possible.

In short: it was the best-worst win I’ve ever seen.

We saw something from this team that we weren’t entirely sure they had. Mental fortitude. Confidence. Straight up, stone cold bad-assery. When Terran Petteway fouled out with 40 seconds to go in the first Overtime the Huskers got off the mat one more time and put their dukes up. It’s why Tai Webster hit 4 clutch free throws down the stretch to keep the Huskers in it and kept leaving skidmarks on the pavement, peeling out in an attempt to leave 2013TaiWebster in his rearview mirror.

I am not saying that this victory should cure the Huskers’ woes moving forward. They have a lot tougher games yet ahead. They will not be able to win if they continue to turn the ball over so vociferously and continue to be colder from behind the arc than a frost-bitten Eskimo.

But that interior toughness, with Walter Pitchford and an undersized David Rivers giving everything they had? That perimeter defense from Petteway and the suddenly-stunningly-confident Benny Parker? The hoarse crowd, screaming so hard that their abs feel like they just P-90ed their X’s off and their vocal chords clanging together like shattering cymbals? That is something that they can replicate.

They may be still recalibrating their equilibrium, this time trying to find their balance with the weight of expectations lain upon their shoulders for the first time in what feels like decades. They may be beaten up and lacking height and depth. But this game could have been a devastating loss and, instead, is poised to be the steel on steel pounding that needs to happen to forge a team’s identity from the flames. It was so ugly that it was kind of beautiful.

So what happens now? Do the Huskers take this game and kiln themselves into something special? Do they grit their teeth and turn grinding molars into a cocky smirk as they rise? Let’s hope so. This game cleaned me all out of movie metaphors for first-fighting. And we’ve still got a hell of a lot of season to go.

FIN