Nebrasketball: Huskers Get The W In OT

Didn’t pay those Delaney Bucks for BTN+? Well, lucky for you that I am here to recap the overtime win for you!

This one wasn’t pretty. It’s not anything we want to see replicated again. But the Huskers found a way to win in the end. That’s no light feat of effort when you get out-rebounded on the offensive end 25-4, lost the overall battle 54-28, and miss 18 free throw attempts.

First Half

Yvan Oudrago lost the tip and Southern U promptly scored to take the lead in short order. Jervay Green immediately responded by draining a three. He was hot early on as he drained another one two possessions later. However, from there the Huskers slowed offensively as they had somewhat sloppy drives to the basket the next few possessions and failed to convert the shot or the free throws their drives drew. Defense was also sloppy, having issues with playing too far off their man or not calling out screens for teammates. So at the U16 timeout, Southern was up 8-6.

Coming out of the timeout, Huskers had a great layup by Burke. That started a 14-4 run for the Huskers over the next 6 minutes of play. Southern slowly climbed back to tie it with 1:52 left in the half on a Ahsante Shivers three-pointer, and then a set of free throws gave them the lead. But Samari Curtis free throws, a Cam Mack layup, and making a front end on a pair of free throws gave Nebraska the lead 40-38 at the half.

Circling back for a moment, though, let’s go back to the 5:40 mark of game play. Matej Kavas drains a three-pointer, and hits his 1,000th career point! Congrats to Kavas on that one! Although, he also got called for a terrible technical foul on the shot for flopping, when in reality he was fouled on the shot and should have gone to the line for an extra free throw attempt on top. Instead, he turned around and drained yet another with 4:31 left in the half.

Oh, and a short guy threw it back in Southern’s face with the block:

Second Half

Nebraska quickly gave up the lead in the opening minutes of the second half, eventually trailing 59-51 after a Micah Bradford three-pointer with 12:57 to go. None other than Thorir Thorbjarnarson responded by draining two three-pointers in less than thirty seconds with a Kavas free throw in-between them to cut Southern’s lead to 1 at the tv timeout with 12:03 to go.

Shortly after the time-out, a Jervay Green free throw tied it up at 61 with 10:44 to go. Both teams remained scoreless until another Green free throw gave the Huskers a one point lead with 8:25 to go. It was a back and forth affair with Nebraska in the lead 79-76 with 2:23 to go after a Kevin Cross layup off an assist from Cam Mack.

But alas, Southern took a narrow 80-79 lead off a Darius Williams layup with 34 seconds to go. Luckily on the ensuing possession Green drew a foul and made the second to tie it at 80. Huskers got the stops on two attempts by Southern U and the game was headed to overtime.

OT

If only the Huskers, and more specifically Yvan Ouedraogo had this same level of play as they did in overtime. Ouedraogo had six points and a block, including a great slam dunk. Final score saw the Huskers get the W 93-86.

Game Leaders

Jervay Green led the team with 22 points and also had 6 assists. Haanif Cheatham led with 7 boards. Cam Mack had 16 points and a team high 8 assists. Ouedraogo finished with 11 points, and Kavas had 10. Thor was a perfect 2-2 from deep and 2-3 from the field, while grabbing two boards and one block. The best stat to take away from tonight was the 57.1% shooting from three by the team. The 51.4% from the charity stripe is something Hoiberg needs to address (like, yesterday would have been better for that but let’s not get too hung up here).

And that’s a wrap. Huskers are back in action Monday down in the Cayman Islands!