Nebraska Cornhuskers (0-1, 0-0) vs Southern Utah (1-0, 0-0)

Saturday, Nov. 9, 2019 - 1 p.m. CT

Pinnacle Bank Arena

TV: None

Radio: Husker Sports Network

Internet: BTN Plus

1. Find some mental toughness

Aside from being unable to put the ball through the basket, what lost Nebraska that game against UC-Riverside was an inability or unwillingness to play with the necessary mental toughness. Whether it was not putting in the effort to chase down long rebounds, careless turnovers, rushed shots, or giving away points at the free-throw line, the Huskers lost on far too many winning plays on Tuesday night. The player leadership needs to step up and guys need to put it on themselves to bring more fight and focus tonight. These are issues that head coach Fred Hoiberg mentioned time and again over the offseason as things they could not simulate in practice because it could only be learned under the pressure of a real game. The faster this kind of stuff gets fixed, the faster NU improves.

2. Figure out the free throws

Nebraska's shooting as a whole was awful vs. UC-Riverside, but the concerning trend that's developing early on is this is a team that can't shoot free throws. Based on the closed scrimmage at Wichita State, the exhibition vs. Doane, and the loss to UCR, the Huskers are barely shooting better than 50 percent from the charity stripe against live competition. It's already become a big enough issue that Hoiberg held a "free-throw lecture" last week to try and fix the players' approach and fundamentals at the line. This team simply is not good enough right now to leave that many points off the board by missing every other free throw.

3. Make your 3-pointers

The lack of frontcourt depth isn't just going to cause Nebraska problems on the boards. If the Huskers can't shoot a respectable clip from 3-point range - they were 6-for-26 (23.1 percent) against Riverside - then opponents are going to do the same thing they did against Tim Miles' teams and clog up the paint and dare NU to make perimeter shots. That's exactly what UCR did on Tuesday night, especially when freshman forward Kevin Cross got the ball at the top of the key. The defender would drop underneath the hoop and leave Cross - who is a capable 3-pointer shooter - wide open at the top of the key. Cross went just 1-for-6 from downtown and 1-of-10 from the field overall. Nebraska is a better shooting team than what they showed on Tuesday, and it has to show it to make defenses respect the three and open up the offensive spacing.

Nebraska 80, Southern Utah 69

Robin's 2019-20 record: 0-1

vs. the spread: 0-1