Blog Entry
Familiar story foils Huskers upset bid in 75-64 loss to Jayhawks
February 7, 2010 by Bret Nellor, under Husker Basketball Game Recaps, News.
Nebraska stepped up and went toe to toe with #1 Kansas before losing 75-64 in Lawrence. After racing out of the gates in the second half, the Huskers grabbed a surprising 4 point lead. But then the Jayhawks returned to form and put away the Huskers. With the loss, NU drops to 13-10 (1-7) and KU improves to 22-1 (8-0).
The Big Red benefited from a big game from Jorge Brian Diaz. The redshirt freshman led the way for Nebraska with 20 points, 9 rebounds and 2 blocks. Ryan Anderson joined Diaz in double figures with 12 points. Kansas was led by Marcus Morris who finished with a double-double 20 points and 11 rebounds. Sherron Collins also aided the KU effort with 17 points and 6 assists.
Turning point in the game:
- After the Huskers came out strong in the second half building a 4 point lead, the Jayhawks put together a 16-1 run that NU couldn’t recover from. It was an all too familiar site for Nebraska fans watching Kansas put together one of their classic runs to ruin the Big Red’s chances.
Encouraging points:
- The fact that Nebraska bounced back from a poor effort against Kansas State, to go on the road and give Kansas a scare has to be the biggest encouraging sign from this game.
- Jorge Brian Diaz’s game was very good. Doc Sadler has been preaching to his team to work the ball inside and they took it to heart on Saturday. Diaz was able to get the ball in the post in a position to score as he hit 9-17 shots. His strong effort caused problems for Kansas as Cole Aldrich got into foul trouble early. Though Diaz looked pretty tired at the end of the game, his day confirms for me that he can be a cornerstone type of player for Nebraska in the next couple years.
- Another nice sign was the fact that NU didn’t give up at the end. After Kansas had built their lead up to 19 points, Nebraska continued to play hard and cut the lead down to the final 11 point margin.
In the end this game is a building block for the young Huskers. I was very concerned that this game could have turned out to be a blowout of epic proportions. Instead NU stepped up and executed their game plan in a very tough environment. That can only help build some confidence for Nebraska.
The downside of this game was the fact that the Big Red committed 18 turnovers. Without the turnovers, NU could have possibly held the lead at halftime or had a chance to win at the end. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case.
Nebraska Player of the Game: Jorge Brian Diaz
Up next: Baylor.
Tags: Baylor Bears, Cole Aldrich, Doc Sadler, Husker basketball, Jorge Brian Diaz, Kansas Jayhawks, Kansas State Wildcats, Marcus Morris, Nebraska basketball, Ryan Anderson, Sherron Collins
2 Responses to “Familiar story foils Huskers upset bid in 75-64 loss to Jayhawks”
Comment by Bret Nellor.
Great point Kodi. It’s been the Achilles heel for the Huskers this year. They play well up to the mid-point of the second half and the offense just dries up.
They’ve got to find a way to get over that.
Comment by Kodi.
“It was an all too familiar site for Nebraska fans watching Kansas put together one of their classic runs to ruin the Big Red’s chances.”
It’s not such much of Kansas making a classic run but the Huskers going through their seemingly every game scoring drought. We’re never going to win these big games with the 6,7,10 minute scoring droughts we seem to always have…