Huskers not perfect in 74-39 blowout of Cougars

Nebraska did exactly what it needed to do in Thursday night's game against the Great West Conference's Chicago State.

After taking a huge step back in a 67-61 loss to instate rival Creighton last Sunday, the Huskers needed to come out and get a convincing victory over a lesser opponent at home. That was exactly what they got in a 74-39 victory over the Cougars at the Devaney Center.

In a game that was never really close after the first 10 minutes, Nebraska broke away from a 13-7 advantage and outscored CSU 35-8 through the game's next 24 minutes and eventually bulked the lead up to 39 points.

From there, the Huskers never looked back.

Junior point guard Lance Jeter scored a game-high 13 points to go along with three assists, while redshirt freshman center Jorge Brian Diaz nearly finished with a double-double with nine points and a season-high 12 rebounds.

Like always, Sadler said there were still plenty of things Nebraska needed to correct. In particular, he was especially displeased with his team getting out-rebounded 23-11 on the offensive glass and committing 17 turnovers.

"Well, I'm never going to be disappointed with a win," Sadler said. "But I don't know that we played that good. Obviously I don't know if they did either, but until we get 23 offensive rebounds corrected and we get 17 turnovers corrected, we're not going to be able to beat a good basketball team, or a mediocre basketball team."

After jumping out to a quick 13-3 lead on a jumper by Diaz a little more than five minutes into the first half, Nebraska went on a nearly six-minute scoring drought, and Chicago State was able to chip away and cut the lead to 13-7.

That was obviously a little too close for comfort for the Huskers, as they responded by going on a 17-7 run to close out the half and go into halftime with a 30-14 lead.

The run didn't stop there either, as NU picked up right where it left off by opening the second half with an 18-1 run to all but put the game away for good at 48-15. Jeter accounted for most of the scoring during the spurt, dropping nine of his 13 points in the five-and-a-half minute run.

The Huskers continued to steadily add to their lead until a 3-pointer by freshman guard Adrien Coleman gave them their biggest advantage of the night at 69-30 with 4:16 remaining in the game.

Sophomore guard Brandon Richardson added 10 points in the win, while freshman Myles Holley had his best game as a Husker with nine points on 4-of-4 shooting from the field.

Nebraska will look to continue its turnaround on Saturday when it plays host to Oregon State (4-3) at 7 p.m. With only one day to try and correct the problems from Thursday night, the Huskers know they need to get a lot better in a hurry if they want to knock off the Beavers.

"There was a lot of effort, but we've got a lot of stuff to work on," Jeter said. "We've been working hard the last couple practices, especially on rebounding, and we still weren't successful on it today. Tomorrow, we've just got to work even more, because Saturday's going to be a tough game.

"Oregon State's going to be a lot bigger, and we're definitely going to need to get some more rebounds and have less turnovers if we want to win that game."