Husker men prepare for spotlight, KU
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BY BRIAN ROSENTHAL / Lincoln Journal Star
ESPN is in town. So is Kansas. A Big Monday national television audience will have the rare opportunity to see Nebraska play a home basketball game. Or any basketball game, for that matter. The Devaney Center will be close to full. The Nebraska athletic department is pleading for fans to wear all things red. That all means one thing. “We’ll have to play our butts off,” Nebraska’s Sek Henry said.
Yeah, tonight is no ordinary night on Court Street. Nebraska hosts No. 8 Kansas in primetime, and NU players and coaches want to remember this special occasion for all the right reasons.
“One of these games,” Nebraska senior Charles Richardson said, “you don’t want it to get out of control, because it’s national television.”
It’s not just any national television, though. It’s Big Monday, which, to college basketball junkies, is serious business. Doubleheader, big-time hoops serious. Dick Vitale serious. (No, he’s not in Lincoln tonight).
In Kansas, folks set their clocks to Big Monday. In Nebraska, Big Monday sends sports writers scurrying through old television logs. Tonight is Kansas’ second Big Monday appearance in two weeks; it’s Nebraska’s second in 10 years.
The Huskers’ last Big Monday game on ESPN was in 2000, when No. 20 Oklahoma won 62-54 in Lincoln.
“Obviously, a lot of people watch it, so I think it’s an honor to be chosen to play on it,” Nebraska coach Doc Sadler said. “Kids enjoy it.”
And the coach?
“If you’d have asked me six or seven years ago, ‘Would it be fun playing on Big Monday?’ ...” Sadler said, “and now you get the opportunity to play on Big Monday, and you’re playing Kansas, you better be careful what you wish for.”
Sadler, in his first season with Nebraska, welcomes the national exposure. Good for recruiting, he says.
The risk, though, is that Sadler’s team, vastly undersized by Big 12 Conference standards, isn’t quite ready for a prime-time outing against, say, Kansas. Perhaps the Jayhawks, laden with McDonald’s All-American talent, will hog the spotlight and run away laughing.
Wait a second, says Richardson.
“We’re ready,” he said. “We’re ready as far as exposure goes. But right now, we’re not playing our best basketball.”
Nebraska (12-7, 1-4) is coming off Saturday night’s 61-45 loss at Kansas State, in which the Huskers scored a season-low point total and shot a season-worst 4 of 20 from three-point range. Only one player, center Aleks Maric, scored in double figures, and he missed point-blank shots in finishing 4 of 12 from the field.
“We played real good defense against K-State, but one thing we didn’t do is shoot the ball well like we’ve been doing all year,” said Richardson, whose team shot 36.7 percent. “We’ve got to have guys hit open shots and make plays on the offensive end.”
The Huskers, though, are 9-1 at home, with the one loss by a point to Texas, one of the Big 12’s upper-division teams.
“If we come out and play like we did against Texas, and play real hard for 40 minutes, and have a chance the last couple of minutes to win the basketball game,” Richardson said, “I think we should prove a point and show how good we are on television.”
Kansas (18-3, 5-1) has won 12 of its last 13 games and is 3-2 in true road games. As impressive as the Jayhawks have been — they’ve beaten defending national champion Florida and routed Oklahoma State by 30 — they’ve also toyed with lesser competition, needing overtime to win at Iowa State and holding off Missouri by three points at home.
Could the Jayhawks’ stigma of playing to the level of their competition play in Nebraska’s favor?
“I think that’s a knock,” Sadler said. “I don’t think that’s necessarily true. I think they’re so talented, they make it look easier than what (it is).
“It’s like people going to NBA games and saying they don’t play very hard. Well, I don’t think that’s the case. I think they’re so good, that it makes it look easier than it is.”
As it was against Texas, controlling the transition game will be key against Kansas, Sadler said. Moreso, in fact, because the Jayhawks are deeper and more experienced than the Longhorns.
“I know they’ve got NBA players, for one thing,” Henry, a freshman, said in assessing Kansas. “They play hard. They’re ranked top 10 in the country. There must be a reason why they’re top 10.”
Henry, a Los Angeles native, said he was a Big Monday follower in high school. He noted the large crowds, the intensity, the big-time atmosphere.
He just never gave serious thought to being a part of it.
“But now I’m in it,” he said. “It’s going to be big.”
Briefly
-- Approximately 12,000 tickets for tonight’s game had been sold going into the weekend.
-- Nebraska is 17-12 against Kansas in the Devaney Center.
-- Ron Franklin, Fran Fraschilla and Holly Rowe will call the game for ESPN.
Reach Brian Rosenthal at 473-7436 or brosenthal@journalstar.com.
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