Nebraka falls to KansasThe Nebraska Cornhuskers had a very difficult loss to the Kansas Jayhawks tonight at the Bob Devaney Sports Center 68 to 62. The game was hard fought with Nebraska leading for much of it. NU led by 5 at the half. The positives for the Huskers were their defensive pressure and the play of senior Ade Dagunduro who led the Huskers with 24 points. The Husker defense was able to force the Jayhawks into committing 21 turnovers the most they have all year.

The reason the Huskers lost the game was their field goal percentage KU shot 56% from the field while NU only shot 40%. This Nebraska team is not good enough to beat bad teams with that kind of shooting disparity, much less the defending national champions.  In the end NU had pulled the game to within one on back to back three pointers by Sek Henry with less than a minute to go. KU got the ball and drove to the basket where they called a very questionable foul on Ryan Anderson that basically put the game out of reach for the Huskers.

The big story line before the game was would NU be able to slowdown Cole Aldrich? The Huskers more than slowed him down Aldrich; they nearly stopped him as he had no points in the first half and ended the game with only 8 total points. The lead for stopping Aldrich came surprisingly by walk-on Cole Salomon who played 13 minutes for the Huskers and did a very nice job of shutting down Aldrich including blocking one of his shots.  Solomon finished with three points coming off of a free throw and a nice offensive rebound and put back to help stretch the Husker lead in the first half.

It was finally decided before the game that Brian Diaz will take his redshirt this year so that means the Huskers will have to go with what they got and that appears to include more minutes for Solomon who did a nice job defensively and helped out on the offensive end.

The Huskers are going to have to figure a way to get more easy looks on the offensive end, because without a post player this team is very offensively limited and when Paul Velander goes 1 of 5 from three and Ryan Anderson goes 0 of 5 you are not going to win many basketball games. To me that was the most surprising thing about this game. NU did not shoot that well and KU shot very well from the field and yet the Huskers really should have won the game. If Nebraska had done a little better at the free throw line and gotten a couple of calls down the stretch they win this game. NU finished the game shooting 7 of 14 from the free throw line (50%) of they make 11 of 14 (78%) they probably would have won the game. The consolation is that NU did not need a perfect game to beat KU, granted this is not a national championship level KU team. The Huskers have been very competitive in each of their Big 12 games. They now need to start winning some of these close games.

Their next two games at Texas Tech and at Colorado are must win game. The Huskers currently sit 2-4 in conference play they need these next two wins to be even in the conference going into the second half. This team needs to finish at least 7-9 in the conference season and get to the NIT. Doc has the coaching ability, the players have the desire to win, but they are just not making shots.  Hopefully that will turn around in their next game.

Go Big Red! - Corey


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Nebraska BasketballThe Nebraska Cornhuskers lost to the Oklahoma State Cowboys 76 to 74 in overtime on Saturday afternoon. The game is a very disappointing loss for Nebraska as it drops them to 2-3 in the conference season. This is one of those games that Nebraska had to win to keep any chance of making the NCAA tournament alive. Maybe it is just my rose colored glasses, but I still believed that NU had a chance to go on a nice run here and end the first half of the conference season 5-3. It is more likely after this loss that the Huskers will be 4-4 or 3-5. Their next opponent is the Kansas Jayhawks who should be able to pressure Nebraska’s guards into mistakes and force bad shots from the outside. Due to KU’s athleticism the Huskers are going to have a very difficult time getting to the hoop against Kansas.

The game started off very good for the Huskers as they were up nine to two at one point early on. That is when the Huskers went ice cold from the field. The fans kept wondering and hoping to see Jorge Diaz come in to give this team a much needed post presence and create those kick out three point opportunities, but he never came. Paul Velander led the way in futility for the Huskers as he finished the game one of eight from the field. He did get fouled on a couple of those shots that were not called, but even when he was open he did not make shots that he normally does. Following closely behind Velander was Sek Henry who was a whopping one of five from the field. In the game it seemed that Sek forgot what makes him a good player, it is being aggressive and getting to the hoop. Sek failed to even attempt to do drive even when OSU’s big man had four fouls with around five minutes to go in the game. A Husker player never attempted to drive the ball in and create contact drawing the foul. It seemed like this team made a conscious decision to not take the ball inside. OSU was playing man defense for much of the game that the Husker guards normally exploit with penetrating to get the basket or kick out.

Looking at the final stats a few things really stand out. Nebraska make their last field goal with 2:55 to go in regulation. That is ridiculous, and the primary reason we did not win this game. To win basketball games you must score more points that the other team, you can’t do that when you are only shooting 39% from the field. In OSU we saw what we should be getting from this undersized team this year, as they shot 54% from the field for the game. OSU is playing the up-tempo game that we were promised with this year’s team.

If you cannot tell, I am very disappointed in this loss. This game was another must win that we failed to win. This game is a very bad home loss to a middle of the road Big 12 team. These are the types of games that NU needs to start winning in they want to take a step forward in the Big 12. Saturday was a big step backward.

My final gripe about Doc’s decisions on Saturday was that he asks his players to take on the other team’s big man were they give up anywhere from 4-7 inches. It is understandable if you have no other choice to get the kids to do something that is really quite extraordinary, but Doc had a different choice that he could have made. He could have played Jorge Diaz and given Ryan Anderson and Ade Dagunduro a little help down low. Instead Doc has decided to give up on the season and on this group of senior’s by sitting Diaz. Ade Dagunduro, Steve Harley and Paul Velander deserve more from their coach who asks them to give their all against difficult odds!

- Corey


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nebraska beats kansas stateNebraska defeated the Kansas State Wildcats 73 to 51 Saturday night at the Bob Devaney Sports Center. NU led by 11 at half time and led by as many as 30 during the second half of the game. Once again Nebraska used a stifling defense to win a game, but this time the Husker offense decided to show up. The offense was keyed by dribble penetration and kick out passes to Paul Velander who finished with a game high twenty points on 6 of 10 shooting from 3 point range. The Wildcats did not shoot poorly from the field and ended up at 41.5% for the game. Their downfall was their sloppy play with the ball as they committed 25 total turnovers which NU turned into 34 points. Some of those turnovers were due to the tough defensive pressure that was put on by NU. Surprisingly, NU was able to give Iowa State fits with its pressure defense and also was able to force KSU into a ton of turnovers. If NU can use turnovers to get the offense going they should be able to have a good shot at having a winning record in conference play. That would be a big accomplishment for the NU program moving forward.

At halftime of the game both Danny Nee and Eric Strickland were inducted into the Nebraska Basketball Hall of Fame. They were both very gracious and seemed really excited about the direction of the program. It was nice to see Coach Nee be received back into the Devaney center. He is the winningest coach in Nebraska history and deserves all the accolades that he receives.

Doc has basically trimmed his rotation to eight players: Cookie Miller, Ade Dagunduro, Steve Harley, Ryan Anderson, Sek Henry, Chris Balham and Toney McCray. Brandon Richardson is hurt currently but when he comes back he will make the ninth player in the rotation. Currently McCray, Dagunduro and Balham are playing the minutes at the 5 spot. The big question all year: would Jorge Diaz get on campus was finally answered today. Doc said that Diaz arrived in Lincoln during the game. Now the even bigger questions will come first is he physically ready to contribute on this level, and if he is ready does he burn a year of eligibility for only 13 regular season games? I don’t know the answer to those two questions, but from Doc’s response in the post game show it sounds like he is definitely ready to put Diaz in and give him a shot. We have quite a few post players coming in next year, so playing Diaz this year could help to spread out the class and give him experience going forward.

The game today is probably about as well as NU can play with their current roster. If they are hitting outside shots and penetrating in the lane they can play with most teams. When they are not hitting their shots you see games like the loss on Wednesday to Iowa State. The Huskers next game is at Oklahoma, which will be a very tough opponent. It will be an exciting few days, and by Wednesday we should know if Diaz is going to redshirt this year or play.

Corey


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