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Nebraska men’s basketball will look to stop a two-game losing streak when it hosts Rutgers on Thursday at 8 p.m. CT.
The Huskers (12-4, 2-3 Big Ten) will tip off with the Scarlet Knights (9-8, 2-4 Big Ten) in a game on FS1 with Kevin Kugler and Nick Bahe on the call. The game will also be carried on the Huskers Radio Network with Kent Pavelka and Jake Muhleisen.
Nebraska is 8-0 on the season at home and has tied a program record with 20 consecutive home wins. Over the past three years, Nebraska has a .880 winning percentage (37-5) inside Pinnacle Bank Arena.
“We’ve got a job to do tomorrow against a really good team that’s healthy,” Fred Hoiberg said of Rutgers. “They’re really good. They start four freshmen that all have incredible talent and then you bring players off the bench that really fit their roles well. So we’re going to have to be on point tomorrow.”
Despite the consecutive road losses in which they gave up an average of 100.5 points, the Huskers are still a top-25 defense nationally. They rank 21st in the nation in adjusted defensive efficiency according to KenPom.
The two back-to-back losses, and two of the three Big Ten road losses, have come in embarrassing fashion. Nebraska won’t scrap what it has done all season which is rely on its defense to win games.
“Sometimes there is such an overreaction when something happened like it did the other day at Purdue,” Hoiberg said. “What do you do with the system? Do you start over or just what you are doing, do it better, do it longer, do it harder? Those are the things that we are really trying to focus on right now because we’ve had a winning formula.”
The Nebraska defense, which is structured around forcing opponents to make long-range shots, should work well Thursday as Rutgers scores just 32.4% of its points from 3-point range, good for 225th in the nation. The Huskers rank 358th nationally in opponent 3-point attempt rate and 146th in opponent 3-point field goal percentage (32.6%).
The Scarlet Knights rank 14th in the Big Ten in 3-point percentage (32.4%) for the entire season. In league play, Rutgers is 12th in the conference with a 3-point percentage at 31.3%. Nebraska is 15th in defensive 3-point percentage (37%) in conference play.
The Scarlet Knights have two of the most dynamic freshmen in the country. Point guard Dylan Harper Jr. leads the Big Ten in scoring at 20 points per game while averaging 5.2 rebounds and 4.4 assists.
“He’s a really hard matchup with one person,” Hoiberg said. “Different guys will have an opportunity to guard. Sometimes you are cross-matched and when you get back in transition you just have to know the coverages, try to do the best you can to make it difficult.”
Forward Ace Bailey is averaging 19 points per game, good for third in the league, and is 10th in rebounding at 7.7 per game.
Harper and Bailey combined for 38 points in the Scarlet Knights’ 75-68 home win over UCLA on Monday.
“When they hit shots, you need to try and make them contested,” Hoiberg said of the duo.”You can’t give them easy looks because those are going in 100%. The other thing those guys do, they are in such good control. You can’t speed them up, and that’s really impressive for kids that are their age.”
Three of Rutgers’ top four scorers are freshmen, as Lathan Sommerville is averaging 7.2 points while senior Jeremiah Williams is at 7.3 points per game.
Using different bodies on Harper and Bailey will be important. Look for a combination of players from Rollie Worster, to Sam Hoiberg and maybe even Brice Williams to slow down Harper.
Nebraska will likely look to use its weak side doubling help defense on Bailey with the bigger stronger forwards, primarily Juwan Gary and Berke Büyüktuncel, to slow him down.
The Huskers can’t allow the NBA scouts and potentially front office executives who will be at the game to watch the Scarlet Knights affect them. They will likely not fully stop Harper and Bailey but they also can’t let two players beat them like what happened at Iowa.
Valuing possessions will always be a factor with this year’s Nebraska team. Nebraska ranks 17th in the Big Ten with 12.6 turnovers per game. Limiting Rutgers’ transition baskets off turnover will be key.
Looking at the numbers, the Scarlet Knights don’t force a high number of turnovers off of steals. Their 7.6% non-steal percentage ranks 207th in the nation, while Nebraska does tend to have sloppy turnovers and ranks 320th in non-steal percentage committed at 9.3%.
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