Nebraska basketball coach Doc Sadler opened his postgame news conference with an apology Saturday night and followed that with a promise.

Thirty minutes after his Huskers lost to NCAA Division II Southern Ilinois-Edwardsville 54-50, Sadler appeared in the press room.

“First of all, let me say I apologize for you all watching that and for the fans,” he said. “We’re going to do much better. … I’m going to find out who wants to play hard. We’re going to start early in the morning.”

Nebraska hit just one of its first 20 shots, fell behind by eight early and never led in the contest. But the offensive struggles didn’t seem to bother Sadler as much as a lack of effort on the part of his team.

“I can’t remember in 25 years of coaching when we didn’t get on the floor for a loose ball, when we didn’t take a charge,” Sadler said. “That’s one thing we’re going to do.”

Nebraska opened the game 0-10 from the field, getting its first basket when Charles Richardson hit a 10-foot pull-up jumper with 12:03 remaining in the half. The ice-cold Huskers then missed nine more shots before Sek Henry made the score 11-8 on a short jumper.

The Huskers tied the game three times late in the first half. But the Cougars’ Mike Hardiek drained a three-pointer in the final 30 seconds to give Southern Illinois a 24-21 halftime lead.

Nebraska hit just six of 29 shots in the first half and turned the ball over seven times. But the Husker defense kept the Cougars in check, forcing 12 turnovers and giving up a single offensive rebound.

Southern Illinois-Edwardsville opened the second half with an 14-6 spurt, taking a 38-27  lead on Doug Taylor’s baseline hook shot 13:45 left.

Nebraska came back to cut the lead to one, using a 14-4 run, capped by seven consecutive points from Ryan Anderson to cut the Cougars lead to 42-41 with 5:18 left.

But SIU-E scored five straight points and Nebraska never got closer than three down the stretch.

The Huskers finished the game shooting just 29 percent from the floor and put up 26 three-point attempts, making just 6. That also bothered Sadler.

“We missed a lot of easy shots and our shot selection wasn’t any good,” he said. “We’ve got guys taking shots they don’t take in practice. That’s my fault. I haven’t taught them well enough.”

Sadler’s message was received by his players, who got a half-hour of it before the coach met the press. Both Richardson and Anderson echoed their coach when they spoke after the game.

“I guess you can label this as a wakeup call for this team, for this program,” Richardson said. “We didn’t play nearly as hard as we should have. … Were not as good as we think we are. We’ve got to come out and play hard.”

Like Sadler, Richardson refused to use the absence of center Aleks Maric and guard Marcus Perry, two of the Huskers most experienced players, as an excuse for Saturday’s lackadaisical play.

“Every day somebody else gets hurt, somebody else comes back,” Richardson said. “We should be used to it by now. We’re not playing as hard as we should be.”

Asked how he would get his team to play harder in the two days before its regular season opener on Tuesday against Nebraska-Omaha, Sadler replied: “Wednesday we practiced three hours and never shot a basketball,” he said. “That didn’t work, so we’ll go four. We’re going to do a lot of toughness drills. This team’s not tough.”

Reach L. Kent Wolgamott at 473-7244 or at kwolgamott@journalstar.com.