• Huskers fall 28-25
• Blackshirts are back after 24-3 win over Michigan State
• Nebraska rolls by Minnesota and eyes Michigan State next
• Second half pushes Nebraska past Ohio State
• Thoughts after loss in Madison
• Nebraska heads into Big10 play 4-0
• Huskers improve to 2-0
• Huskers open up with 40-7 win
• Bubba Starling signs with the Royals
• Nebraska and Iowa to play in the “The Heroes Game”
• New Nebraska Football Gloves from Adidas
• Seven Huskers picked in 2011 NFL Draft
• Nebraska and Wisconsin set to play under the lights
• Memorial Stadium Expansion Update
• Bo finally speaks about coaching staff

The Nebraska basketball team beat IPFW (Indiana Purdue Fort Wayne) Saturday night 75-48 in front of a crowd of 4,860.  The crowds are normally small this time of year with students being gone, but being on a 2 game losing streak probably hurt the attendance a little also.  The Huskers came out sluggish and seemed to have a little bit of a hangover from the last couple of games.  Their pressure was largely ineffective in the first half and Doc decided to give Nick Krenk a couple of minutes of play to close out the half on his night.  With Krenk in the game the Mastodons scored a couple of threes to take the lead at half time 34 to 29.

Nebraska was led in the first half by Steve Harley’s 12 points as he kept the team in the game by providing the primary scoring punch for the Huskers.  The other achilles heel for the Huskers in the first half was their poor shooting from the free throw line as they were two of eight. Nebraska came out and played better the second half.  They dropped the ¾ court pressure and instead picked up a tough man to man defense in the half court.  Nebraska also showed a trapping 1-3-1 zone look that created multiple turnovers and allowed some easy transition baskets to close out the game and make the final score much more lopsided than it actually was for most of the game.

From the Outside:

Taking a look at the Huskers scoring punch this year the big question is where is Ryan Anderson?  He was a consistent scoring threat from 3 last year as he shot 36.8% and made 50 three pointers on the season.  This year he is only shooting 29.2% on 7 or 24 shooting.  It seems that the absence of Alecs Maric has really caused teams to try and stay with the shooters more than they did last year.  Also he has had open looks this year, but has not made them at the rate that he did last year.

On the other side of is Paul Velander who is shooting an amazing 51.1% from 3 (24 of 47) this year, which is up from 38.3% last year.  Sek Henry has also improved his 3 point shooting going from 27.4% last year to shooting 47.4% so far this year.  It remains to be seen how the teams shooting percentages will change once they face the stiffer competition in conference play, but clearly Sek and Paul need to see more looks in the offense.  A nice addition to the shooting this year has been Toney McCray who is shooting 40% on 6 of 15 from 3

Down Low:

It was good to see Chris Balham get the start as he has sat the last three games with his chronic knee problems.  Alonzo Edwards did not play due to an injury and not practicing most of the week.  He should play more over the next couple of games if healthy.  No sign yet of Jorge Diaz as all signs point to him not being able to make it on campus.  If he is as good as advertised he could be a 15 minute a night guy on this team right now.  NU needs an inside presence to create some space on the outside for the shooters.

Moving Forward:

NU gets a good win against a bad team, but needs to continue to improve as they move forward.  Ade and Ryan are going to need to step up big time once conference season rolls around if this team wants to win games.  It will be interesting to see how the 1-3-1 develops as time goes on, it could be a way to limit another teams ability to take advantage on the inside.  With Nebraska’s quickness we may be able to get more steals in the pressure zone without creating as many fouls as we have been with the full court man to man defense.

See you all at the game Tuesday night – Go Big Red, Corey

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