Maric leads Huskers over Mean Green
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BY RON POWELL / Lincoln Journal Star
Like the Nebraska football team, its men’s basketball counterparts unveiled a bit of trickery to open the game against North Texas on Wednesday night.
But after 6-foot-11 junior Aleks Maric buried the first three-pointer of his career for the first basket of the game, Nebraska resorted to good old-fashioned defense and basic inside-out offense to finish the job.
The Huskers sprinted to a 21-point lead in the first 10:12 of the game and never looked back. Maric’s 26 points, 11 rebounds and four blocked shots sparked the Big Red to a surprisingly easy 76-57 win against the Mean Green before 9,787 spectators at the Devaney Sports Center.
Coach Doc Sadler’s Huskers improved to 5-0 with the win, the best start for a first-year Husker coach since 1919, when Paul Schlisser went 6-0 to begin the 1919-20 campaign.
After Maric’s three from the top of the key, he settled into a more conventional style. He finished 9-of-11 from the field against the smaller North Texas squad, including four dunks. Two of those slams cleaned up Husker missed shots on back-to-back possessions late in the first half.
“What three-pointer?” Maric said kiddingly after being asked about the long shot. “To tell you the truth, I wasn’t going to shoot it, but I changed my mind at the last second. It felt good, it looked good and I was lucky it went in.
“I’ve been practicing it (three-point shooting) ever since Doc got here, and this was my first real chance to shoot it,” added Maric, who had missed his other two three-point attempts earlier this season.
That was just the start of things to come. Nebraska jumped to a 12-0 lead in the first 3:27 and never looked back. The Huskers’ man-to-man defense forced North Texas into 2-of-14 shooting and 11 turnovers in sprinting to a 25-4 lead with 9:48 left in the first half. NU led by as many as 23 points (39-16 with 3:23 remaining) in the first 20 minutes before settling for a 42-23 lead at intermission.
The Mean Green never got closer than 18 points in the second half as Nebraska opened up a lead as large as 28 points, 65-37, with 9:38 left.
“We didn’t come out and establish ourselves early and they did,” said North Texas coach Johnny Jones, whose team was led by guard Calvin Watson’s 16 points. “We didn’t get settled in until late in the first half, and that was too late. They’re a good, talented team, and we have a long way to go.”
North Texas (5-2) had beaten North Carolina-Charlotte, Rice and Tulsa earlier this season. Sadler said “this was the best team we’d played to this point,’’ based on their guards’ ability to dribble penetrate and shoot the three.
The Mean Green entered the game averaging 81 points, but was held to 34 percent shooting by the NU defense while committing 25 turnovers, 15 of those steals by the Huskers.
“We wanted to jump on them early, shock them and let them know we’re from the Big 12 and that we’re Nebraska,’’ Maric said.
Sadler called the first five minutes “the best we’ve played all year.
“I really liked our guys’ intensity and effort,” Sadler said. “I think we’re playing great team defense.’’
When North Texas sagged in to stop Maric, Ryan Anderson, Charles Richardson and Marcus Perry hit shots from the perimeter. Anderson a 6-4 freshman, scored 18 points, Richardson added 11 and Perry was 3-of-5 from beyond the arc for nine points off the bench.
The Huskers shot 52 percent from the field (29-of-55).
“Aleks makes everything else so much easier,” Anderson said. “People start doubling him and everyone is wide-open on the outside.’’
It wasn’t a perfect performance, however, from Sadler’s view. NU finished with 17 turnovers and gave up 18 offensive rebounds.
“They don’t understand the value of (handling) the basketball,” Sadler said of his players. “If we can buy into the value of taking care of the basketball and defensive rebounding, this could be a good basketball team.”
Reach Ron Powell at 473-7437 or rpowell@journalstar.com.
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