Junior Jervay Green scored 15 points and freshman Kevin Cross added 11 to unofficially open the Fred Hoiberg era at Nebraska with an 87-56 win over Stella Azzurra Academy in Rome on Monday in the first of four games during the team’s tour of Italy.
With a starting five of Green, junior Dachon Burke, senior Haanif Cheatham, senior Matej Kavas and junior Thor Thorbjarnarson, the Huskers got off to a bit of a slow start but quickly took the game over.
After trailing 5-1 out of the gates, NU went up by as many as 26 points before halftime and never looked back. For Hoiberg, he didn’t go into the game with many expectations, but for the most part his team accomplished what he had hoped.
“The biggest thing you want to see in a situation like this is to go out and compete for 40 minutes, whatever the circumstance is,” Hoiberg said in an interview with the Husker Sports Network. “I thought we competed really well for about 30 of the 40 minutes. I thought we took our foot off the gas a little bit. We got up 26 in the second quarter and let them cut it back to 17.
“We didn’t do the things that made us successful early, which was pushing the ball, playing unselfishly, and not having the same type of movement. But like I told them in the locker room, sometimes that first one is the most difficult, and it’s good to get that one behind us.
“For the first time out here playing together against another team, for the most part I was very pleased.”
Burke finished with 11 points while Kavas had 10, as the Huskers did the majority of their work at the rim and by creating points off turnovers. Every NU player who suited up scored in the game.
It should be noted that four scholarship players did not see action on Monday. Sophomore point guard Cam Mack did not travel to Italy after being hospitalized with an illness last week. Mack was released from the hospital over the weekend and is recovering in Lincoln.
Freshman Akol Arop is also not with the team after some issues with his paperwork prevented him from international travel.
Fellow freshman Yvan Ouedraogo won’t play in any of the four games because he was competing with France’s national team at the FIBA U18 European Championships in Greece. Ouedraogo will join Nebraska in Italy this week.
Lastly, junior Derrick Walker, who will sit out this season, did make the trip but did not suit up as he deals with a lingering injury issue.
As for those who saw the floor, Hoiberg said he hoped the defensive aggressiveness continued to develop but added that the Huskers had to do a better job of capitalizing when they got the ball to the hoop.
“I hope by staying in our gaps and having active hands we are able to create some deflections, and that hopefully will get us out in transition where we can get easy baskets,” Hoiberg said. “One other thing that I thought we did was we missed a lot around the rim. We could’ve scored 20 more points, I thought, just by finishing. We had some good open looks that we just didn’t convert today.”
Maybe the most important aspect of the trip is getting a collection of new players to mesh together as a unified team both on and off the court. The Huskers arrived in Rome on Sunday and then toured Vatican City on Monday morning.
They plan to see other historic sites like the Colosseum and the Spanish Steps on Tuesday morning before leaving for Florence, where they will play their second game of the tour vs. Silute Basketball Club on Wednesday (1 p.m. CT).
“It’s important,” Hoiberg said. “That’s a big part of this opportunity and experience is building chemistry. They can’t have their phones because they don’t have the Wi-Fi here, and a lot of them are leaving their phones back at the hotel. So to be able to go out and have dinners together and experience what we did today … it’s just great. Like I told them, I really want them to enjoy it.”
Scorers: Jervay Green 15; Kevin Cross 13; Dachon Burke 11; Matej Kavas 10; Shamiel Stevenson 9; Haanif Cheatham 7; Delano Banton 7; Samari Curtis 5; Charlie Easley 3; Jace Piatkowski 3; Thorir Thorbjarnarson 2; Bret Porter 2
