Nebraska men’s basketball won 63-58 over Bethune-Cookman Saturday night in a game that can best be described as a tug-of-war.
The Huskers trailed for much of the first half, built up a big lead in the second half then had to sweat it out in the final minutes, staving off a Wildcat comeback attempt. Nebraska went 6-for-6 from the foul line in the final 40 seconds to secure the victory.
Here are three takeaways from the win.
Slow Start
Nebraska was slow out of the gates outside of a high-low play from Braxton Meah to Juwan Gary for a layup. The Huskers had two turnovers in the game’s first six possessions and Bethune-Cookman led 8-4 at the under-16 timeout of the first half.
Nebraska had multiple stretches of over two-plus minutes without a field goal in the first half, including an 0-for-11 drought in 5:13. At one point, Nebraska was just 2-for-17 in an eight-plus-minute span.
The Huskers made just three field goals in the last 12 minutes of the first half and their first 3-point make came on a Gavin Griffiths attempt with 5:37 left in the half.
The first half box score read like this, 8-of-31 (for 25.8%) from the field and 1-of-10 from behind the arc with just four assists.
“I thought we started pressing,” Coach Fred Hoiberg said. “We stopped trusting. When we trust, when we make simple plays, we’re a pretty effective team. We couldn’t buy one out there in the beginning and we shot, what, 25% I think in the first half.”
Assists to Turnovers
This is the third time Nebraska has played on its home floor, including the exhibition. In all three games the Huskers have a combined 45 turnovers and just 33 assists. That is a miserable at best 0.73 assist-to-turnover ratio. Tonight they had 18 turnovers and just 11 assists. In the two regular season games there has been multiple careless turnovers — just throwing the ball away, lazy passes or not seeing the floor well enough.
“We played in small spaces and that’s to my point of just trying to go out there and do too much,” Hoiberg said. “You don’t have to, you can hit singles. We talk about it every day. And we’re just not. Once we get on the court and the lights are on, for some reason, we’re not doing the same thing that we do behind closed doors and in the practice facility.”
Something else that has now become a trend is poor 3-point shooting. Against Bethune-Cookman, the Huskers shot just 4-of-22 for 18.2%. In their three games thus far, including the exhibition win over Grand Valley State, they have made just 16-of-63 3-point attempts.
Learning From A Win
Nebraska has now won 23 straight games when holding an opponent under 70 points, including 29-2 over the last two-plus seasons. The last time Nebraska lost a game when holding an opponent under 70 points was against Purdue in 2022.
Defensively, the Huskers held the Wildcats to just 35% shooting from the field and forced 22 turnovers. Eleven of those turnovers were live-ball including a career-high five steals for Juwan Gary. However, there were moments of uncontested layups, letting the Wildcats get behind the defense and gambling on the defensive end.
Overall defensively, Hoiberg mostly liked what he saw from his team.
“Our activity was good,” he said. “I think we forced 20 or 22 turnovers, 13 in the first half, and that kept us in the game.”
Nebraska will look to get some rest and recover after what Hoiberg called the toughest practice to date on Thursday. They’ll host Fairleigh Dickinson Wednesday night.
