Husker Hoops Hold off Hot Shooting Tennessee-Martin

One of the most common questions surrounding the Nebraska men's basketball team early in the season has been "what's wrong with Walt Pitchford?" Well, hopefully, after today, we can say, nothing's wrong. Pitchford broke out of his early season slump by pacing the Huskers with 19 points in a victory over Tennessee-Martin, 75-64. He hit his first four three point attempts of the game, calming the fears, for at least one night, of Nebrasketball fans everywhere.

The Huskers had to hold off a pesky Skyhawks bunch who lit up the Pinnacle Bank Arena nets by hitting 11 threes and staying with in striking distance for most of the night. For a while, this one looked like the Huskers were going to run away and hide like most expected them to. As the second half wore on, NU built an 18 point lead, but a 17-3 run for UNM saw the Husker lead cut to 54-50. That's as close as they would get as the Huskers would build the lead back up to 10 before settling on the 11 point final margin.

NU saw a Terran Petteway have his typically solid game, scoring 18, but his 8 assists added a dimension to his game that, if he can sustain it, will make him an even more dangerous player. He also had to leave the game midway through the fourth quarter after appearing to injure himself going up for a layup in transition. He came down awkwardly and had to head back to receive some medical attention before returning to the game.

The Huskers saw a balanced contribution from most of the rest of the team including nine from Benny Parker and seven from Moses Abraham. The Huskers have now had consecutive games where they out-rebounded their opponent, something which had caused them problems in early games.

The Huskers will see a much stiffer challenge on the boards in their next game when they head to Tallahassee, FL to take on the Florida State Seminoles in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge on Monday night. The Huskers will look to win their fifth game of the year and first road game of the season. The game will be shown on ESPN2 at 6:00 pm.