With five minutes to go in the second half, a lazy pass to star senior guard Keisei Tominaga was stolen by Creighton senior guard Francisco Farabello leading to a fast break layup. At this point, Husker fans had already begun a mass exodus for the exits as it was clear there was no coming back from what had ballooned to a 30-point lead.
Nebraska came into Sunday as the last undefeated team in the Big Ten following Purdue’s loss to Northwestern the day before. The Bluejays came into Lincoln angry and seeking revenge from last year’s matchup which ended with Nebraska upsetting the then No. 7 ranked Creighton in Omaha. The Huskers were unable to repeat last year’s performance, falling to the Bluejays 89-60 following an absolute nightmare shooting day.
“Especially in rivalry games as big as this you never want to lose those games,” Creighton senior forward Ryan Kalkbrenner said postgame. “Losing last year you definitely have a little more attention to detail you feel like you owe them one after last year.”
The Bluejays came out of the gates fast with a different level of intensity as if they were still upset from last year’s matchup. They out-hustled Nebraska early, beating them to the first few loose balls of the game.
Tominaga got a step on his man, shielded him off, and then hit a step back for the Huskers’ first points of the game. He immediately followed up the jumper with a steal leading to a fast break layup cutting the lead to one that sent the over 15,000 Nebraska faithful into mayhem. Tominaga’s offensive spurt ignited more than the crowd, as the Husker’s defense and overall effort began to match the Bluejays effort diving for loose balls and competing on the defensive end.
Creighton senior forward Baylor Scheierman, who had a 21-point, 8-rebound performance in his last game, began to assert himself, going on an 11-4 run by himself. Despite Tominaga’s best efforts, the offense began to sputter for Nebraska while Scheierman continued to torch the Huskers, hitting a pull-up three to extend the lead to eight and then another a few minutes later to put the lead at 12.
The Bluejays shot the ball extremely well in the first half, hitting 10 3-pointers on 23 attempts and effectively burying Nebraska from beyond the arc. The Huskers’ 3-point defense had been excellent all season long as they came into the game holding teams to a mere 26% from three. However, Creighton is the best team they’ve played and were able to get open shots all afternoon by exploiting Nebraska’s defensive strategy, driving baseline forcing them to collapse which left shooters open in the corner constantly.
“We knew where they wanted to help from,” Scheierman said postgame. “We have three to four shooters on the court so having them at the top and in the corner, [the Huskers] have to pick and choose who they want to guard.”
The Bluejays rarely scored in the paint, instead opting to attack the rim and wait for trailing wings to get to the corners which Nebraska left open inexplicably all game. When they were not finding open shooters, Creighton would pull the ball back and dump it off to Kalkbrenner trailing the play, often finding smaller defenders on him due to switches from the defense collapsing.
The Huskers on the other hand were in the midst of their worst shooting performance of the season as they failed to make a 3-pointer the entire half until Tominaga knocked one down on the last Nebraska possession. The Huskers compounded their bad shooting with a controversial foul on a 3-point attempt to end the quarter. The foul added with a technical on a frustrated Tominaga gave the Bluejays five free throw attempts. Nebraska went into the half trailing 52-37.
Creighton continued to score at will during the second half despite cooling off a bit from three. The Bluejays continued to string together stops and buckets to maintain and extend their lead. Creighton’s defense suffocated the Huskers in the second half. Nebraska’s offense fell into taking half-hearted drives that the Bluejays gave them which were stifled by Kalkbrenner time and time again. Tominaga had success early and finished leading the Huskers with 20 points. No other Nebraska player cracked double figures.
“They were comfortable out there, that’s on us,” junior forward Rienk Mast said postgame. “They did a good job forcing us into tough shots that we were uncomfortable with.”
The Huskers came into Sunday averaging 81.6 points per game — the most since the 1995-1996 season — so Sunday’s 2-for-22 3-point shooting day and 60-point performance was unexpected to say the least. Coming into the game, Nebraska led the Big Ten with 9.6 3-pointers made per game, which can be viewed as an overachievement after Sunday’s hard regression to the mean. The Huskers were also outrebounded by 11 against Creighton, something the team knew they had to manage if they wanted to win.
“A big part of this business at any level is responding,” head coach Fred Hoiberg said postgame. “We are going to learn from this one and then we’re going to put it behind us and hopefully bounce back with great effort.”
While Nebraska left Sunday afternoon disappointed, the season is by no means over. The Huskers started the season 7-0 for the first time since 1992-1993. They have also gone 13-4 in their last 17 games, boating well for their hopes of making the tournament going forward.
Sunday afternoon exposed some of the team’s weaknesses, however, few teams in the Big Ten are equipped with the combination of size down low and shooting like Creighton is. Looking ahead, the Huskers head to Minneapolis to open conference play against the Golden Gophers on Wednesday, Dec. 6.