Nebraska men’s basketball used every decoy, call or blind to continue the nation’s longest winning streak with a 90-55 drubbing of the Oregon Ducks in Lincoln Tuesday night.
It took a little time to get blinds set up and the decoys out, but the Huskers used the right calls to get the win.
With 4:04 left in the first half the game was tied at 28. The Huskers used a 14-2 run to take a 42-30 lead at the half then nearly doubled up the Ducks in the second half.
“We started to be more physical defensively and we were really getting buckets in transition,” Pryce Sandfort said. “We were getting the ball up the court quick and our offensive flow started to get into a groove.”
Keys Met
Matching Oregon’s physicality and keeping the Ducks off of the offensive glass was the first thing Fred Hoiberg mentioned on Monday in his pregame media availability.
Before Tuesday, the Ducks led the Big Ten in offensive rebounding at 13.8 per game and were 22nd in the country in offensive rebounding percentage (37.9%) per KenPom.
“We got our ass kicked, and they played harder than we did,” Oregon coach Dana Altman said. “They played harder than we did. They out-rebounded us, out-fought us at every turn.”
In the first half, the Huskers held an offensive rebounding advantage of 6-0 and finished the game with an 8-7 edge.
The Huskers also won the second-chance points category 11-6, another sign of winning with physicality.
“We talked about that before the game, if we win the glass, we’re going to have a really good chance to win the game, and that’s what happened,” Hoiberg said.
The second key was playing off of two feet and making the right play when the Huskers got paint touches. Oregon led the points in the paint category 14-12 at the half, but the Huskers made up the difference in the second half to win that metric 30-26.
“For this particular game, we had to rebound,” Hoiberg said. “We had to bring our hard hat, we had to bring our lunch pail, we had to go out and compete with this team on the glass.”
Another key was limiting the shot-blocking ability of the Oregon front court to block shots.
Using the curl actions to get the shot-blockers away from the rim was important coming into the game, and the first set of the game was just that, a Sam Hoiberg layup coming off of the double screen at the high post.
Getting Active
Sam Hoiberg finished the game with a career high six steals, just two shy of the school record and the most ever by a Husker at Pinnacle Bank Arena.
“Nebraska’s activity is really good,” Altman said. “Defensively, they are really solid. His activity defensively just changes the game. They’re really good, they’re really connected offensively and defensively. Defensively, really impressed. I think their defensive activity is really good and I think that’s gonna keep them in a lot of ball games.”
The Huskers finished the game with 11 steals and forced 16 Oregon turnovers while committing just six of their own, outscoring the Ducks 23-4 in points off turnovers.
Hot Shooting
It wasn’t just on the defensive end and the rebounding that won the game for the Huskers. Pryce Sandfort and Braden Frager combined to shoot 14-of-22 from 3-point range. The wing duo scored 51 of the Huskers’ 90 points in the game. Sandfort finished with 28 points and Frager recorded a career high of 23.
“Two guys go 7-for-11 from 3, at some point and time you might recognize that they’re shooting it pretty good and guard,” Altman said.
As a team, the Huskers made 17 of their 3-point (47.2%) attempts and shot 53% from the field.
Next up for the Huskers is a road trip to Chicago to face Northwestern on Saturday at 3 p.m. CT.
