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


2 Comments | Write Comment

2 Responses to “Nebraska comes close to upsetting Kansas”

  1. Nebraska comes close to upsetting Kansas - Nebraska Sports Blog Says:
    January 29th, 2009 at 12:48 pm

    [...] Nebraska comes close to upsetting Kansas [...]

  2. Nebraska comes close to upsetting Kansas | Northeast Kansans for Nebraska Says:
    January 30th, 2009 at 1:04 am

    [...] Nebraska comes close to upsetting Kansas [...]

 
Daily Fantasy Sports Games at FanDuel.com

Looking for the latest NFL picks & college football picks? Or maybe just free sports picks? If so check out the best sports betting site on the internet!

Popular Tags
 
Husker Fan Sites
 
Husker News Sites
 
Archives
 
Syndication