Leaving Las Vegas? It rates high on Rotten Tomatoes, but not in Nebraska’s plans.
The Huskers extended their stay into the weekend at the College Basketball Crown by defeating Georgetown 81-69 on Wednesday night.
“This time of year any tournament you’re in obviously survive and advance,” assistant coach Nate Loenser said on the Huskers Radio Network postgame show. “I just walked back in with Juwan and gave him another big hug like I like to do after some of these big games. The selfish part for myself is we get to coach these seniors a little bit more, and coach this team a little bit more.”
The seniors played like they want to keep the uniform on. Brice Williams had 28 points and Juwan Gary had 17 of them to go with 10 boards.
“That’s why we wanted to play in the tournament so badly,” Williams told reporters in the postgame room. “The way things ended, we all just had a bad taste in our mouths. We were a little bit more fueled to come into this tournament. We still have something to prove and we want to end our season and this year on a high note with a championship.”
Then there’s native son Cale Jacobsen. Fred Hoiberg called him the MVP in Monday’s win over Arizona State. On Wednesday in his first career start, Jacobsen had 7 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 steals, 2 blocks. A team best +16 when he was on the floor. And he was on the floor for 36 minutes.
“Can’t talk enough about Cale,” Loenser said. “Just talk about everything that a Nebraska Cornhusker and the state (represents) … He bleeds it. He believes in it. He’s been kind of the ultimate pinch hitter. Been kind of the 11th man in a 10-man rotation and all that. He’s that Swiss Army knife. He knows the positions 1 through 5.”
A play that summed up his night of work came in the second half when Ahron Ulis, who had one of his better games as a Husker, had a turnover. Jacobsen sprinted back on defense and stole it back from behind.
“Character matters. And he’s so smart,” Loenser said. “He knows what we’re doing offensively and defensively inside and out.”
The win means the Huskers (19-14) will play a tough Boise State squad (26-10) on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. in the tournament’s semifinals. It’s a Broncos team Nebraska coach Fred Hoiberg thinks should have been in the NCAA Tournament.
“We’re not satisfied,” Hoiberg told reporters. “We’ve got a big one coming up Saturday.”
Williams had told his teammates there was going to be none of this one foot in, one foot out stuff if the Huskers played in the tournament. He’s walking the walk, following up his 30 points on Monday with an 8-of-14 shooting performance that included going 5-of-9 behind the arc. He’s now tied for Tyronn Lue for third most points (678) in a Husker season and just 26 behind Dave Hoppen and 30 behind James Palmer.
“One of the most cool, calm, collected players we played against this year,” Georgetown coach Ed Cooley said. “He plays with a pro’s mentality. He’s one of the better scorers we’ve played against this year. And I think there’s some high, high-level scorers in our league. He does it with a lot of ease. He does it with length, he does it with ball handling and shooting. He was one of the better players we had to prepare for in a short period of time.”
Georgetown was playing without its three top scorers from the regular season but guard Malik Mack is a walking bucket. He had 37 points for the Hoyas while beating Washington State on Monday. And even though NU held him to just two in the first half on 1-of-8 shooting he went off in the second half to finish with 25 for the game.
“I believe Malik will be one of the best guards in the country next year,” Cooley said.
The Hoyas (18-16) kept draining 3s to hang around. A 19-point Husker lead dipped into single digits, but Nebraska never let it get closer than eight after leading 34-24 at the half. It was NU’s first halftime lead since the game at Oregon on Feb. 2, by the way.
It was 45-26 Nebraska less than four minutes into the second half. It seemed short-handed Georgetown might be down for the count. Nebraska had the edge in rebounds 40-31 after the Hoyas had 18 offensive rebounds two nights ago. NU also shot 47 percent to Georgetown’s 39. But the Hoyas made 8-of-16 behind the arc in the second half.
Fortunately for Nebraska, the Huskers were able to respond whenever a basket was needed to stiff-arm Georgetown’s charge.
– Gary hit a big 3 when the score had been cut to 58-50.
– Williams hit another long one when it was 70-60.
– Andrew Morgan, who had 12 points and nine rebounds, scored a big putback with a couple minutes left when it was 77-69.
The Georgetown 3s stopped falling from there and that was that.
There is a financial reward for Nebraska for the win. The tournament gives $300,000 to the NIL collective of the winner, $100,000 to the runner-up, and also $50,000 guaranteed for being in the semifinals.
For the competitors involved, it’s more about trying to go out winning your final game.
“I give our seniors a lot of credit. This is a different deal,” Loenser said on the postgame radio show. “You wait three weeks after the season and a lot of guys could have said, ‘This isn’t what we want to do.’ Move on with their careers and things like that. For the guys, especially these seniors, to decide to continue this journey together and put themselves out there and get that first win Monday – there was a little bit different look in our guys’ eyes I thought with our preparation going into this thing.
“I thought we started the game with a better edge … and hopefully we continue that throughout the weekend.”
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