Nebraska men’s basketball will look to get back in the win column when it travels to Piscataway, N.J., to face Rutgers for an 11 a.m. CT tip Saturday.
Big Ten Network will televise the game with Jason Horowitz and Brian Butch on the call, while Kent Pavelka and Jeff Smith will call the game on the Huskers Radio Network.
The Huskers, riding a two-game losing skid, had their mid-week conference bye at what felt like the right time. The five days off gave the Huskers a chance to get rest and work on improving as the team prepared to travel to Rutgers.
“It’s been a good week for us to get back on the practice floor and get a lot of things accomplished,” Fred Hoiberg said on Thursday.
The focus on themselves for the majority of the week is something the team needed after the consecutive losses.
“It just gives you a chance to get back to the basics a little bit, which we needed,” Hoiberg said. “We were brutal on the offensive glass. (Illinois) was just the worst we’ve had all year as far as attempting to go in. We’re not built that way, but I just thought we completely gave in on that end of it.”
Winners of five of their six true road conference games, the Cornhuskers have been good on the road this season.
“I give our guys credit,” Hoiberg said. “They played solid on the road all year, even looking at the one loss at Michigan. I thought our guys played with great poise and composure for most of that game. We’re going to have to do that for 40 minutes on Saturday.”
The RAC
Jersey Mike’s Arena, formerly known as “the RAC,” has been one of the toughest places to play for Nebraska since joining the Big Ten.
Historically, Rutgers is 9-11 against Nebraska and 6-3 in Piscataway.
“They’re always very dangerous, especially in the RAC,” Hoiberg said of Rutgers. “The way they play, the way they can get the crowd behind them. Obviously early game, it’s important to get off to a good start.”
Eight of the nine Scarlet Knights’ wins this season have been at home.
“The RAC is one of the great venues in our sport,” Hoiberg said. “It’s old, the ceiling’s low and when they get the crowd behind them it’s hard to hear, and we’ve got to make sure we are on point, communications, hand signals, gotta make sure we are ready for all that.”
Scouting Rutgers
The Scarlet Knights have won just two conference games (2-11) and nine of their 23 games overall this season.
Despite the record, Rutgers has Nebraska’s attention, particularly after their last home game, an overtime loss to Michigan State, 88-79. In that game, the Scarlet Knights held a seven-point lead with less than three minutes remaining.
“Tough, physical, everything that Coach [Steve] Pikiell has always done with his team is get them out and go out and play with unbelievable effort,” Hoiberg said. “You look at that Michigan State game where they were up double digits for a lot of the second half; really, I felt they should have won that game.”
Junior guard Tariq Francis is 17th in the league in scoring, averaging 17.9 points per game. His 17.2 average in conference games is good for 12th in the Big Ten.
“He’s unbelievable,” Hoiberg said. “His ability to score it — tough shots, we have to stay down on his pump fakes. He does a great job of getting himself to the free-throw line and just trying to make him take as tough of shots as you can.
He’s really, really talented, and his mid-range shots, you want to give some of those up, but he’s elite. He’s elite in the mid-range. So again, make it as difficult as possible, but you can’t hang your head if he makes a few of them.”
Keys To the Game
Let’s face it, Rutgers isn’t a great basketball team, at least that is what almost every analytical category says.
The one thing the Scarlet Knights are decent at is taking care of the basketball. Rutgers’ turnover percentage is 15.5%, 80th in the country. Their non-steal turnover percentage of 7.0% is 72nd nationally.
The first key is being disruptive. The Huskers have done a good job for the majority of the season using their hand activity to get deflections and force turnovers. Nebraska’s defensive non-steal turnover percentage is also 8.7%, good for 39th in the country.
The second key is to win the battle of the boards.
The Scarlet Knights average 34.4 rebounds per game, their opponents 36.4. Their offensive rebounding percentage of 32.8% ranks in the top half of the nation, 111th. Their opponents’ offensive rebounding percentage of 34.1% is 309th. Rutgers attacks the offensive glass aggressively, but that hasn’t carried over to the other end of the floor this season. This should be a good opportunity for Nebraska to improve on its 324th-best offensive rebounding percentage (26%).
Clearly, Nebraska takes and makes a lot of 3-pointers, and that could be a bad formula for the Scarlet Knights. So the third key is Nebraska just needs to be what they have been offensively.
Rutgers opponents are shooting 37.9% from 3-point range, which is 348th nationally. Nebraska’s 35.8% from deep is 77th in the country.
