Husker fans who tuned into tonight's Nebraska/Saint Louis game to see what Brian Diaz looked like will have to wait until another game to get that impression. Diaz took a hard shot to the mouth in the opening minute and broke a tooth. He didn't return until late in the second half, and only played a few minutes. He came in cold and shot a couple of awkward hooks that missed badly, and headed back to the bench.
All told, it was an ugly night. Nebraska started cold and the Billikens jumped out to an early "double the score" lead on the Huskers. The Huskers fought back and pulled to within one at 28-27 at halftime. Ryan Anderson scored to open the second half, putting the Huskers into the lead and apparently annoying the Billikens, who went on a 14-2 run to take command of the game.
Not a lot of positives to take from tonight's game; without Brian Diaz, the Huskers don't look much bigger than last season and seem to really miss a guy like Paul Velander. Doc Sadler hasn't been too happy with the defense in his Twitter comments, so there's a lot of work to be done. I'm interested in seeing a little more out of Lance Jeter down the line; he caught my eye a couple of times in the limited time I had to watch tonight.
This looks like a rebuilding part of the season early on; things could get interesting when Christian Standhardinger becomes eligible in January.