Husker men upset No. 16 Ducks
digg it!
Facebook
del.icio.us
Seed Newsvine
Fark It
Reddit
BY BRIAN ROSENTHAL / Lincoln Journal Star
OMAHA — That $65,000 court seemed to hold up well during a million-dollar postgame celebration.
And Nebraska’s 88-79 overtime victory Saturday against No. 16 Oregon at Qwest Center Omaha could be worth more than that come March.
“If we keep winning, they become more realistic,” Nebraska senior center Aleks Maric said of Nebraska’s postseason hopes. “It’s as simple as that.”
Related Link(s):
Several hundred of the 12,109 fans stormed the court after what was arguably Nebraska’s biggest victory under second-year coach Doc Sadler.
Nebraska students huddled around Sadler during his postgame television interview and yelled “Go Big Red!” Husker players, as they left the court, smiled and waved to those who drove through several inches of snow for this first neutral-site game in Omaha.
“I just want to thank everybody in Nebraska that attended the game and raised the roof on this place,” said Maric, who led the Huskers with 23 points. “It was so loud and electrifying. What an atmosphere. That’s all I can say.”
They witnessed Nebraska’s first victory against a ranked foe since last season, when the Huskers, in Lincoln, beat No. 20 Creighton, the team that calls this place home.
“It’s something for a young basketball team, later on this year, to draw from a positive experience,” Sadler said. “I hope.”
It’s the first time the Huskers (8-2) have defeated a ranked nonconference foe away from Lincoln.
But it did come on a replica of Nebraska’s home court, one that cost the school $65,000. The never-before-used FieldTurf Tarkett basketball court will undoubtedly be cherished when Huskers break it out for future neutral-site games.
“We haven’t had a lot of things happen,” Sadler said, “to have guys run the court.”
But a victory against the high-flying Ducks warrants such action.
Ryan Anderson’s three-pointer to begin overtime gave the Huskers the lead for good. Oregon (8-2) was within 79-77 with 1 minute, 27 seconds to play, but Jay-R Strowbridge hit a mid-range jumper, then Sek Henry rebounded a rare missed three-pointer from Tajuan Porter.
From there, Nebraska shot 3-of-6 at the free-throw line, while Oregon made its only field goal out of 10 attempts in overtime.
That was an aberration from regulation, when the Ducks shot 49 percent, including 14-of-27 from three-point range. Oregon missed four three-point attempts in overtime.
“No matter how good our defense was, they made shots, which was frustrating,” Ade Dagunduro said. “I’m just very thankful we got the win.”
Porter, who scored a game-high 29 points, put on a shooting clinic, going 7-of-15 on three-pointers.
“Guys, that dude hit some shots,” Sadler said, “that it didn’t matter who was guarding him.”
Porter’s biggest three, a high-arcing shot, tied the game with 9.1 seconds left in regulation. Steve Harley fouled him, but Porter, a 70 percent free-throw shooter, was long on his chance for a game-winning four-point play.
Anderson rebounded, but Harley’s shot from the three-point arc at the buzzer was long.
“We felt like we should’ve won it in regulation,” said Dagunduro, who scored 15 points but fouled out with 2:02 remaining in regulation.
Nebraska led 72-71 when he exited but missed three point-blank shots through the rest of regulation.
“Usually, when things like that happen and you go into overtime, you might think you lost it already, because we should’ve won and we gave it up,” Dagunduro said “But I think this team did a good job of focusing on overtime.”
Nebraska had lost 10 days earlier in overtime, on the road, to Western Kentucky. Sadler and players agreed this team has since gotten tougher.
“For them to just continue to compete, when maybe we missed some easy shots, maybe missed some free throws, the game was tight … that shows a lot for the character of these guys, not having a lot to draw from,” Sadler said.
“Until you’re put in that situation, you really don’t know. That’s probably the proudest thing there is today for me.”
Anderson scored seven of his season-high 21 points during a 9-0 run to start the game. Nebraska led 38-34 at halftime and also began the second half strong, taking its biggest lead of 52-39 on Paul Velander’s three-pointer with 16:15 to play.
“That was huge,” Maric said. “You obviously want to come out hard in the first 5 minutes of the game, but more importantly, the second half.”
Oregon, which entered the game ranked third nationally in scoring (89.7 points) and 13th in field-goal percentage (51.1), came back to force three ties but never led after halftime.
The Ducks had 18 turnovers, compared with a season-low seven by Nebraska, which had 21 turnovers here three weeks ago in a 74-62 loss to Creighton.
“It was about two or three weeks ago in a press conference I said we’re still tweaking,” Maric said. “We’ve tweaked a long way, but we’ve still got some tweaking to do.”
Said Dagunduro: “Ever since that Western Kentucky game, the strides that we have made have been unbelievable. It’s kind of surprising how tough we got in the last two weeks. We’ve just got to keep progressing.”
Reach Brian Rosenthal at 473-7436 or brosenthal@journalstar.com.
Most Commented news