Nebraska men’s basketball started the season with a 106-64 win over Le Moyne Monday night in Lincoln.
After the three exhibition games, the Huskers wanted to check a few boxes against the overmatched Dolphins from Syracuse, N.Y..
Being the tougher team — and in particular, winning the rebounding advantage — was one. Nebraska outrebounded Le Moyne 40-29 and had a 12-7 offensive rebounding advantage in the game.
“Plus-11 on the glass, that’s our recipe,” Cale Jacobsen said after the win. “We talk about it all the time, and so to come in and be able to do that is what our goals were.”
Jacobsen finished the game with a career-high 16 points.
Even though the Dolphins shot 29 3-pointers, the Husker guards rebounded down. Trevan Leonhardt finished the game with five rebounds, tying Pryce Sandfort for the team high. The other starting guard, Jacobsen, chipped in four rebounds.
Taking care of the basketball was another win. The Huskers had eight turnovers to the Dolphins’ 17.
The flow of the offense was much better against Le Moyne than the three exhibitions.
“I thought our movement was terrific,” Coach Fred Hoiberg said. “I thought we shared the ball very well. We executed the game plan of not driving into a crowd and making the simple play for the most part.”
One thing this team was built to do was shoot the basketball. Scoring 106 points, tying for the fifth-most in program history to open a season, especially with the two key offensive contributors in Pryce Sandfort and Braden Frager combining to shoot 2-for-11 from 3-point range, is certainly a good sign. As a team, the Huskers made 46.7% of their 3-point attempts (14-for-30).
“A lot of positives with the offense, and the spacing was really good,” Hoiberg said. “I thought our guys had made a very conscious effort of attacking with their feet and it paid off.”
The Huskers had 24 assists on 35 made field goals. Leonhardt, the team’s primary initiator of the offense, had a team-high seven assists and no turnovers.
“It started with Trevan,” Hoiberg said. “He went out there and I thought he was really good at getting downhill and making plays. I know he didn’t take a shot against Kansas State, but I’m telling you when we went back and watched the film, his cutting, his IQ, getting into an offense were very instrumental in winning that last game. It was good to see him get some numbers tonight to show a lot of those things that he can do with the seven assists and zero turnovers.”
One of the Huskers’ key offseason additions was Belmont transfer, Sam Orme. Orme didn’t play in the three exhibition games and was a game-time decision Monday night. He went through the team’s full warmups.
“He just didn’t quite feel right before that game,” Hoiberg said. “Hopefully, with whatever we’ve got — six days — heading into the next one, he’ll be ready. We’ve said all along we’re going to be very conservative with this, not push it, not force it. Hopefully he continues on the right trend. He had two good full practices leading into this game, but just had a little bit of soreness and we didn’t want to push him through that.”
With 8:28 on the clock in the second half, Connor Essegian made his return to game action after missing most of last season due to injury. Essegian’s first shot, a layup at the rim, was blocked; his second was a contested corner 3-pointer that found the bottom of the net.
Essegian made three of his five field goal attempts, with all three makes coming from beyond the arc.
“I’m really happy for Connor, going out there and taking the lid off the basket tonight,” Hoiberg said. “We are going to need him this year. I’m really proud of him for how he went out there and got it going, and it’s a good confidence builder for him.”
There were plenty of good things for Nebraska against an overmatched opponent on Monday night. The concerns continue to be there.
Against teams with more physicality than Le Moyne, the Huskers will need to be more physical than they were on Monday night. Yes, they won the rebounding battle, but that won’t be as easy Saturday against a Providence team that will be more aggressive in attacking the basket and pressuring the ball with their three-guard lineup.
