It looked like the Nebraska basketball team was well on its way toward cruising to a third straight blowout victory in its rematch against Silute Basketball Club out of Lithuania on Thursday in Florence, but then some adversity finally hit.
After taking a comfortable 24-point lead into halftime, the Huskers saw their advantage dwindle all the way down to one possession in the final seconds of the fourth quarter.
In the end, though, head coach Fred Hoiberg got the perfect scenario for his new team, as NU got its first real test and still came away with a 73-70 victory to improve to 3-0 on its Italian tour.
"I don't think we could've drawn it up any better, just to witness some kind of in-game adversity," NU assistant coach Matt Abdelmassih said in an interview with the Husker Sports Network.
"It was a tale of two halves. I don't think we could've played any better in the first 20 minutes, and then the second 20 minutes we definitely had the ball stick to our hands, we lost all the concepts that we're trying to enforce and we showed in the first half, and ultimately the score showed it in the way we played.
Against a team that it beat by 25 a day earlier, Nebraska was outscored 41-20 in the second half as its offense went from red hot to ice cold after halftime.
The Huskers used their third different starting lineup in three games, rolling with senior Matej Kavas, senior Haanif Cheatham, junior Jervay Green, junior Thorir Thorbjarnarson, and freshman Samari Curtis as the first five on the floor.
After making 10 3-pointers as a team in Wednesday’s win, Nebraska came out firing from the opening tip and hit four from behind the arc in the game’s first three minutes. But the offense slowed a bit and BC Silute was able to tie it up at 22-22 at the end of the first quarter.
Just like the previous meeting, though, the Huskers quickly got things under control. Behind some hot shooting by Kavas, who made three 3-pointers in the half, NU ended up out-scoring BC Silute 31-7 in the second quarter to take a commanding 53-29 lead into halftime.
Nebraska made seven 3-pointers as a team in the first two quarters and had five players score seven or more points, including nine from Kavas and eight apiece from Green and Curtis.
The shooting hit another skid to open the third quarter, though, as NU didn’t score for the first four minutes and allowed BC Silute to go on a 10-2 run to chip away at the lead.
That would eventually end with BC Silute owning a 23-11 edge in the third quarter and cutting the deficit to 64-52 going into the fourth and final frame. The Huskers managed just four points through the first seven minutes of the third period.
Nebraska’s lead would shrink down to five early in the fourth, but Cheatham knocked down a big 3-pointer to help keep BC Silute at arm’s length.
The game would get within one possession in the final seconds, but the Huskers were able to maintain their lead until the buzzer and hang on for the win.
"Overall I think we were absolutely gasses and exhausted," Abdelmassih said. "(Playing) back to back nights, which we're going to experience a couple times during the season, just to learn from this is going to be key. Ultimately I felt that our composure was there. I do think part of it, though, was just exhaustion."
Curtis led the way with a team-high 13 points.
The team will stay in Florence on Friday and take a day trip to Pisa to visit the famed Leaning Tower of Pisa. On Saturday, Nebraska will travel to Como, making a stop at the Ferrari Museum on the way.
After a boat tour of Lake Como and quick trip to Bellagio (a small village off of Lake Como) on Sunday and a tour of Lugano, Switzerland, on Monday, the Huskers will return to Como on Monday night for their fourth and final game of the trip vs. Italian Select at noon CT.
