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Defense leads the way in 73-52 win over Islanders

In its final non-conference game of the season, Nebraska did what it needed to do and regained some momentum heading into the New Year with a 73-52 victory over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Sunday.

It was by no means a thing of beauty offensively, as the teams combined to shoot 33.3 percent from the field with 33 total turnovers. But the Huskers controlled the game throughout with its best defensive performance of the season.

Not only were the Islanders’ 52 points an opponent season-low, but they came on just a 31.7-percent clip, and NU also forced a season-high 21 turnovers on 15 steals that were converted into 24 points.

Senior guard Haanif Cheatham led the way with a game-high 17 points while freshman Yvan Ouedraogo set career-highs with a double-double of 11 points and 14 rebounds. As a result, NU finished its non-con slate at 6-7 overall entering its remaining 18-game conference slate.

"We missed a couple easy layups and some wide-open threes, but we stayed in it," head coach Fred Hoiberg said. "We stayed together... You want to manufacture some points when the ball isn’t going in the hoop... You have to have that when the ball isn’t going in, and you have to be able to guard. I thought we did that tonight.”

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Nebraska had its best defensive effort of the season to finish non-conference play with a victory over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Sunday.
Nebraska had its best defensive effort of the season to finish non-conference play with a victory over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Sunday. (Associated Press)

Points were hard to come by on either end to open the game, as the teams combined to shoot 4-for-18 from the field through the first five minutes.

But while it was a struggle for the Huskers on offense, their defense more than picked up the slack. The Islanders didn’t reach double-digit points until the 9:35 mark of the first half and then went on a six-minute scoring drought, allowing NU to piece together a 22-4 run and take a 30-12 lead.

Despite a quick 9-0 run by TAMU-CC toward the end of the half, Nebraska went into halftime with a 34-21 advantage.

Texas A&M-Corpus Christi only shot 25 percent from the field and made just one field goal over nearly 11 minutes, while Nebraska scored 12 points directly off of 12 TAMU-CC turnovers.

That defensive effort helped make up for NU only shooting 33 percent itself and making just one of its 12 attempted 3-pointers in the half.

“I think we showed what we could do (defensively) the first two Big Ten games," Cheatham said. "I think we showed what we could do defensively and that’s a big key for us...

"Once we show that and play great defense for 40 minutes - we understand they’re going to go on runs sometimes, but just sticking together on defense, that could win us some big-time ball games."

Nebraska’s shooting didn’t get any better after halftime, as it made just one of its first 13 shots to open the second half and allowed the Islanders to pull within 38-28 after five minutes.

The Huskers would get things back under control, though, and a highlight-reel alley-oop from Cam Mack to Jervay Green gave them their biggest lead yet at 57-37 with 7:18 remaining.

It was cruise control from there, as NU led by as many as 24 before settling on a 21-point victory.

"I thought we bounced back, especially on the defensive end tonight," Hoiberg said. "Offensively, that ball really got moving in the second half. Defensive pressure led to some easy baskets and found a way to manufacture some easy points.”

Mack filled the box score once again with 10 points, five assists, three rebounds, and three steals, while senior Matej Kavas came off the bench to score 10 points.

Nebraska will return to action on Friday, Jan. 3, when it plays host to Rutgers for a 7 p.m. tip on Big Ten Network.

3-POINT PLAY

1. Effort, energy, and enthusiasm were all much improved

Compared to what Nebraska looked like in its ugly home loss to North Dakota a week earlier, Sunday was an encouraging step back in the right direction in terms of the team’s overall mentality and body language.

Even though the game was ugly and shots weren’t falling, the Huskers were constantly talking and picking each other up after every play.

Those might seem like small things. But for Hoiberg, they were as important as anything to come out of this game outside of getting the win.

“It was everything that we talked about," Hoiberg said. "We try to simulate that in practice and put them in adverse situations and put them in as many of those situations as possible, but nothing compares to the game-time situation with the crowd in there and with every possession meaning something."

2. Ouedraogo is coming into his own

Rebounding will never be one of Nebraska’s strong suits, but the development of Ouedraogo since the start of the season has been notable.

The 6-foot-9, 265-pound 17-year old is still far from a finished product, but he’s slowly but surely starting to play like he’s one of the biggest and strongest players on the floor – which so far, he has been more often than not.

Sunday was one of Ouedraogo’s best efforts yet, as he became the first Husker true freshman to record a double-double since Shavon Shields in 2013. Of his game-high 14 rebounds, six came on the offensive end.

The native of Bordeaux, France, came into the game with a team-high 5.8 rebounds per game, putting him on pace to be the just the third NU true freshman to lead the team in boards. Only Aleks Maric (2005-06) and John Turek (‘01-02) have accomplished that feat.

On top of all that, Ouedraogo also became just the ninth freshman in program history to have a double-double.

3. Now the grind begins

Nebraska’s first 13 games this season have been full of highs, lows, and inconsistency. The Huskers have beaten teams they probably shouldn’t have and lost games that were supposed to be easy wins.

With the final non-conference tune-up now in the books, NU now enters the meatgrinder of an 18-straight Big Ten games beginning on Friday.

The good news is that two of the best outings Nebraska has had this year – at Indiana and vs. Purdue – came in the early two-game taste of league play earlier this month.

Cheatham admitted after Sunday’s win that the Huskers tended to play up or down to their opponent at times.

Now that every name on the front of the opposing jerseys will carry some clout, the hope is that the frustrating lulls in focus and effort that we’ve seen far too often this season will become rarities instead of the norm.

THEY SAID IT

"We have to continue on an upward trend if we are going to have a chance to compete with the teams we are about to face in the next 18 games. When you compare yourself, you hope to be playing good basketball at the start of league play. You have to. We can’t have lulls where we drop our heads and have poor body language because teams will take advantage of us, and they’ll go on a big run, and it’ll be too late. We’ve done that in our league games so far, and we hope those two games are ones that we can build on."
— Head coach Fred Hoiberg on where NU needs to improve the most going into Big Ten play.
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