Huskers Host Peru State in Exhibition on Wednesday

On the air: Wednesday’s game with Peru State will be carried on a select number of Huskers Radio Network stations, including KLIN (1400 AM) in Lincoln, KKCD (105.9 FM) in Omaha and will also be available on Huskers.com and the Huskers app. The pregame broadcast with Kent Pavelka and Jake Muhleisen begins one hour before tipoff.  Fans can also watch Wednesday’s matchup with the Bobcats online at B1G+ (subscription required) with Jessica Coody and Buzzy Caruthers on the call. 

The Nebraska men’s basketball team hits the court for a pair of exhibition games this week, as the Huskers host Peru State and Colorado at Pinnacle Bank Arena. The matchup with Peru State takes place on Wednesday, Oct. 27, with tipoff taking place at 6 p.m. A limited number of 300 Level tickets for Wednesday’s game are available by visiting Huskers.com/Tickets or at the PBA Box Office beginning at 4:30 p.m. 

A Look at the Huskers

Head Coach Fred Hoiberg begins his third season at the helm of the Husker program with a strong returning corps back for the first time in his tenure. The Huskers return three starters and seven letterwinners while welcoming eight scholarship newcomers. 

The returnees are led by fourth-year junior Trey McGowens, who averaged 10.7 points, 3.9 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game in 2020-21. He is joined by returning starters Lat Mayen (8.6 ppg, 4.5 rpg) and Derrick Walker Jr. (5.9 ppg, 4.8 rpg), as the trio combined for 70 starts last year. McGowens and Mayen started all 27 games, while Walker started the Huskers’ final 16 games after he was ruled eligible on Jan. 10. NU also returns a trio of key reserves in Kobe Webster (8.1 ppg, 38 percent from 3-point range), Eduardo Andre (2.7 ppg, 2.1 rpg) and Trevor Lakes (3.7 ppg, 1.1 rpg). 

The newcomers include a recruiting class which was ranked in the top-15 nationally by ESPN, as well as three Division I transfers. Bryce McGowens is one of the top-25 recruits in the country and was a five-star recruit by several recruiting services after averaging 21.6 points, 4.7 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 1.1 blocks per game last season. He was the Gatorade South Carolina Player of the Year and was selected to the Jordan Brand roster. Wilhelm Breidenbach was a top-100 recruit by ESPN as he averaged 15.5 points, 7.0 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game at national power Mater Dai High School before he suffered a season-ending injury. Junior college transfer Keisei Tominaga earned NJCAA All-America honors after 16.3 points per game and shooting 48 percent from 3-point range. Tominaga played in the Olympics for his native Japan and ranked among the leading scorers in the event despite being the youngest competitor in the field. 

The transfers are led by fifth-year senior Alonzo Verge Jr., who averaged 14.0 points, 3.8 assists and 3.9 rebounds per game at Arizona State. In 2019-20, he was the Pac-12 Sixth Man of the Year as he averaged 14.6 points per game, including a 43-point outburst. Both C.J. Wilcher (Xavier) and Keon Edwards (DePaul) were both top-100 recruits in high school and come to NU with four years of eligibility remaining. Wilcher played in 15 games for Xavier, averaging 3.3 points per game, while Edwards saw action in five games for DePaul. 

About Peru State

Head Coach Bob Ludwig begins his sixth season at Peru State and looks to bounce back after a 9-15 record last season. Ludwig, who played collegiately at nearby Nebraska Wesleyan, guided Peru State to a pair of NAIA National Tournament appearances in his first two years at the school (2017-18, 2018-19). This season, the Bobcats return 10 players, including their top three scorers. Senior Henry Tanksley is the team’s top returnee, as he averaged 17.5 points and 5.0 rebounds per game last season. Ty Griggs averaged 10.8 points per game in 23 contests, including 17 starts and shot nearly 40 percent from 3-point range, while Skyler Wilson averaged 10.7 points per game in 19 games. Isaac Simpson led PSC with 31 3-pointers and shot 41 percent from beyond the arc. One newcomer that has Husker ties is junior forward Dedoch Chan, who was on the Huskers’ 2018-19 roster, but did not play a game before leaving the team. Peru State, which begins its regular-season schedule on Thursday, averaged 73.5 ppg last year while shooting 45 percent from the floor and out-rebounding foes by 0.7 caroms per game. 

Huskers’ Exhibition History

Nebraska is 59-6 all-time in exhibition games dating back to the 1966-67 season and has won its last 17 exhibition games since a 54-50 loss to SIU-Edwardsville in 2006.  In all, NU has won 28 of its last 29 exhibition games dating back to 2001.

• The Huskers are 16-0 against in-state teams in exhibition games dating back to the 2001-02 season, including a 75-43 win over Peru State in 2010.
• The 2021-22 season will mark the first time that Nebraska has played two exhibition games since the 2017-18 season (at Mississippi State; Northwood). That season also featured a charity exhibition game. 

What is Back for the Big Red
For the first time in Fred Hoiberg‘s three seasons, the Huskers return a significant portion of their roster. With three starters (Trey McGowens, Lat Mayen and Derek Walker) and two of its top reserves (Kobe Webster and Eduardo Andre), the Huskers return nearly 50 percent of its scoring and more than 40 percent of its rebounding and assists.  While it may not seem like a large number, the two previous teams had just 21 percent and two percent of its points back from the previous season – the lowest two totals for the Huskers over the last 20 years.  In Hoiberg’s first season, NU returned just one letterwinner and 50 points – the fewest returning total by any power conference school (Power Five + Big East) in a decade. 
 

 
Husker Recruiting Class Seeing Stars
The Huskers bring one of the nation’s top recruiting classes to campus this fall. The class is ranked as high as 13th by ESPN as well as 18th by 247Sports and 21st by Rivals and is the third-highest ranked class in the Big Ten. 
 Nebraska’s five signees are headlined by five-star Bryce McGowens and four-star recruit Wilheim Breidenbach, both of whom were top-100 recruits. McGowens was a consensus top-25 recruit who played in the Iverson Classic and was selected to  the Jordan Brand team. NU rounded out the class with junior college All-American Keisei Tominaga and freshmen Oleg Kojenets and Quaran McPherson.

The Huskers three incoming transfers, who do not count in recruiting rankings included a pair of former top-100 recruits in C.J. Wilcher (Xavier) and Keon Edwards (DePaul), while Alonzo Verge spent the last two seasons at Arizona State.

Up Tempo Basketball

One trait of any Fred Hoiberg-coached team is to play at a fast pace. The Huskers have led the Big Ten in pace in each of the last two seasons, ranking 16th nationally by KenPom in 2019-20 and 35th in 2020-21. NU has been the only Big Ten team to rank in the top-50 in each of the past two seasons. In seven full seasons as a college head coach (five at Iowa State; two at Nebraska), Hoiberg’s teams have ranked in the top-50 in tempo five times, including three times in the top-20.  Prior to Hoiberg’s arrival, the last time a Husker team was in the top-100 nationally in tempo according to KenPom was in 1999-2000 under Danny Nee.

 

Trey the Thief

Fourth-year guard Trey McGowens led Nebraska with 38 steals in his first season, continuing a trend during his college career. The 6-foot-4 guard was fourth in the Big Ten with 1.4 steals per game while starting all 27 games for the Big Red. It marked the third straight season he ranked in the top five in the conference in steals, as he ranked among the ACC leaders in both 2018-19 and 2019-20.

He is one of only four players in power conference programs who have ranked in the top five in steals in each of the past three seasons, joining Jamari Wheeler, LJ Figueroa and Marcus Garrett. McGowens and Wheeler, who has transferred from Penn State to Ohio State, return to college basketball in 2021-22.

 

 
Huskers-Buffs Battle Sunday for Charity
Two longtime men’s basketball rivals will get back together for a trio of worthy causes this weekend, as Nebraska will host Colorado this fall to raise money for the trio of non-profit charities. The game is set for this Sunday, Oct. 31, and will start at 11 a.m., and a limited number of tickets are available for the contest by visiting Huskers.com/Tickets or by calling the NU Athletic Ticket Office at 800-8-BIGRED. 
It will mark the first meeting between the programs since March 5, 2011, which was both schools’ final regular-season Big 12 game before the Huskers moved to the Big Ten Conference and the Buffaloes went to the Pac-12 Conference. Proceeds from the contest will go to three local organizations: the TeamMates mentoring program; the YWCA of Lincoln for its Employ402 program and the Nebraska Greats Foundation.

• The mission of the TeamMates Mentoring Program is to impact the world by inspiring youth to reach their full potential through mentoring. The program, which was started by Dr. Tom and Nancy Osborne in 1991, now serves more than 170 school districts across five states.
• The YWCA’s Employ402 Program is a job readiness program created to address barriers and provide resources for community members seeking mobility, stability, and ingenuity surrounding employment. The Keys Series explores the topics of financial literacy, overcoming barriers, and strengths development.
• The mission of the Nebraska Greats Foundation is to provide medical and financial assistance to in-need former athletes from Nebraska’s 16 four-year Colleges and Universities. The organization was started by Jerry Murtaugh in 2014 and is a member of the Nonprofit Association of the Midlands.

Nebraska will return the favor next season, as the Huskers will travel to Boulder for a charity contest.

Huskers will be Tested in 2021-22

The Huskers face a 2021-22 schedule which features eight games against teams ranked in the Associated Press preseason poll released on Oct. 18. NU will face No. 22 Auburn in non-conference play as part of Holiday Hoopsgiving, while facing No. 6 Michigan (twice), No. 7 Purdue, No. 11 Illinois, No. 17 Ohio State (twice) and No. 21 Maryland. In addition, NU will also play five other games against teams receiving votes (Michigan State, Indiana and Rutgers) in the preseason poll.

ALL IN THE FAMILY

Several members of the 2021-22 Huskers have family members who have played basketball at the college or professional levels. The list is led by former NBA players Eric Piatkowski, who spent 14 years in the NBA after scoring nearly 2,000 career points at Nebraska, and Fred Hoiberg, who played in the NBA for a decade after a standout career at Iowa State. Keisei Tominaga’s father didn’t play college basketball, but was a center on the Japanese national team at the 1998 FIBA World Championship and played professionally in Japan for a decade.

 

 
Banton and Roby on NBA Rosters
Nebraska had a pair of former players on opening-night NBA rosters with Isaish Roby and Dalano Banton.  The pair gives Nebraska multiple NBA players since the 2008-09 season (Tyronn Lue and Mikki Moore).
Roby, a second-round pick in 2019, is in his second full season with the Oklahoma City Thunder after averaging 8.7 points and 5.6 rebounds per game last season. Roby played three seasons at Nebraska and helped the Huskers to a pair of postseason appearances.
Banton was a second-round pick of Toronto in 2021, becoming the Huskers’ second NBA Draft pick in the last three years. A native of Toronto, he became the first Canadian player ever drafted by the Raptors. Banton spent two seasons at NU and averaged 9.6 points per game while leading the Huskers in both rebounding (5.9) and assists (3.9) per game. He was the first Husker since 1974 to lead NU in both rebounds and assists in the same season.

It is Academic For Webster

Kobe Webster became the latest Husker men’s basketball player to earn CoSIDA Academic All-America honors, as he was a third-team selection in May of 2021. Webster, who graduated from Western Illinois in 2020, has a 3.75 GPA while working on his master’s degree in educational administration. Webster was the first Husker men’s basketball player to be honored since Shavon Shields in 2015 and 2016.  NU Head Coach Fred Hoiberg was a two-time Academic All-American at Iowa State (1994 and 1995) and was inducted into the CoSIDA Academic All-America® Hall of Fame in 2016. Entering the 2021-22 school year, Nebraska leads all NCAA Division I programs with 347 CoSIDA Academic All-Americans.

 

An Olympic Effort by Tominaga

Nebraska’s 2021-22 roster features an Olympian, as Keisei Tominaga played for his native Japan in 3×3 basketball during the Tokyo Olympics. Tominaga, the youngest player in the eight-team field, helped Japan reach the medal round and finished third among all players in scoring (6.9 ppg), fourth in 1-point shooting (74 percent) and seventh in 2-point shooting (36 percent).  He was one of only two active NCAA players to play in the Olympics, joining Virginia’s Francisco Caffaro, who played for Argentina in men’s basketball. 

Tominaga became the third Husker basketball player to play in the Olympics, joining Aleks Maric (2012, Australia) and Ade Dagunduro (2012, Nigeria).

 

Husker Roster Boasts International Flavor

Nebraska’s roster has had an international flavor in recent seasons and that trend will continue in 2021-21. Four members of this season’s roster are from overseas, including Eduardo Andre (London, England), Oleg Kojenets (Kaunas, Lithuania), Lat Mayen (Adelaide, Australia) and Keisei Tominaga (Moriyama Nagoya Aichi, Japan).  In three seasons under Hoiberg, NU has had players on its roster from a host of countries, including Australia, Canada, England, France, Iceland and Slovenia.